Red Team was losing.
Not all at once.
Failure arrived through small separations.
Hushline’s Quiet Field collapsed whenever the pressure emitter struck its edge.
Inspector Kuroda became trapped behind a barrier with one officer and three restrained suspects.
Threadhound lost feeling in his left hand after another blow to the shoulder.
Eraser Head’s vision blurred around the edges.
Each blink gave Rampart a fraction of control.
Rampart used every fraction.
A barrier appeared beneath Hushline and threw her across the dock.
Another sealed Kuroda’s prisoners away from him.
A third struck Aizawa’s body camera.
The image shattered into static at U.A.
Midnight gripped the console.
“Shouta?” No answer.
The camera returned sideways.
Aizawa had hit the ground.
A boot came towards the lens.
Midnight switched feeds.
Threadhound’s camera captured Aizawa rolling away as the attacker’s heel crushed the damaged device.
“Red Lead camera lost,” Midnight said.
“Threadhound, maintain visual.” Threadhound ducked beneath an adhesive projectile.
“Trying.” Aizawa rose with blood along one temple.
Rampart stood twenty metres away.
The timer beside him displayed: 00:17:31 “His mother died giving him time,” Rampart called.
Aizawa’s eyes locked onto him.
The barriers disappeared.
“You found him,” Rampart continued, “made him trust you and delivered him back to me.” Aizawa attacked.
Midnight saw it through Threadhound’s camera.
“Shouta, no.” He crossed the dock faster than Rampart’s defensive ring expected.
The capture weapon wrapped around one fighter’s arm.
Aizawa used the man’s weight to swing himself over another.
His heel struck the mirrored-shield user beneath the jaw.
The dust emitter released a cloud.
Aizawa closed his mouth and drove through it.
Rampart retreated.
Exactly as he had planned.
The possible tracker moved the opposite direction.
“Shouta, tracker west!” Aizawa heard.
He continued towards Rampart.
Present Mic’s voice entered the channel.
“We’re thirty seconds out.” Midnight watched Aizawa reach the defensive ring.
“Do not pursue him.” Rampart’s barriers flickered with each involuntary blink.
A translucent plane slammed into Aizawa’s ribs.
He hit a container wall and fell to one knee.
Rampart approached.
“Again,” he said.
“You choose me.” Aizawa looked up.
His eyes were red with ruptured vessels.
“Because you’re standing between us and him.” “No.” Rampart glanced towards the fleeing tracker screen.
“I’m standing where I knew you would look.” A roar tore through the docks.
Not anger.
Sound.
Present Mic’s voice struck the front-line fighters from the side and lifted six of them from their feet.
Container doors slammed open.
Windows shattered.
Rampart’s defensive ring broke formation.
Blue Team entered through the eastern vehicle lane.
Lockstep anchored both hands against a cargo truck and prevented a barrier from rolling it into Hushline.
Switchback crossed the battlefield in sharp, impossible changes of direction, striking two ranged emitters before they could retarget.
Sonar released a mapping pulse that revealed moving bodies behind the warehouse walls.
Present Mic stood on the truck’s roof.
His hair whipped around him.
“Sorry we’re late.” His amplified voice hit another cluster of attackers and drove them away from Aizawa.
Then the humour vanished.
Present Mic looked at his friend.
“You ignored the retreat order.” Aizawa wiped blood from his mouth.
“Busy.” “You chased the man who wanted you chasing him.” “He has the location.” “The tracker has the location.” They ducked as a crane hook swung above them.
Present Mic released a concentrated shout that altered the hook’s course.
It struck a stack of empty drums instead.
Aizawa’s capture weapon pulled him upright.
“Argue later.” “I’m scheduling it.” Gold Team arrived from the north.
Ectoplasm stepped from a van and released clones in waves.
Ten.
Twenty.
Thirty.
They flooded between the containers, restraining isolated attackers and cutting paths towards trapped officers.
Power Loader drove a reinforced support vehicle through an adhesive barrier.
Searchlight climbed onto the roof and scanned the warehouses for hidden heat signatures.
Green Team reached the harbour access road seconds later.
Scentinel emerged first, muzzle lifted.
Tsukauchi followed with national investigators and maritime-response officers.
For half a minute, the balance shifted.
Rampart’s organisation had prepared for Red Team.
Not an army of Ectoplasm clones.
Not Present Mic striking from the flank.
Not Scentinel separating scents beneath solvent, blood and river water.
The front line collapsed.
Ectoplasm’s clones pinned armoured fighters in groups.
Blue Team reached Hushline.
Green Team freed Kuroda.
Tsukauchi moved among captured suspects with photographs of Taro Shima.
“Which one is Ferric Echo?” One prisoner laughed.
“Me.” Another shouted, “Wrong, it’s me.” A third raised both hands.
“I can find the box.” Tsukauchi studied their faces.
None matched.
Rampart had instructed them to lie.
The oxygen timer fell to: 00:14:22 Scentinel moved through the tracker screen’s abandoned route.
“Marine fuel.
Rust.
Blood.
Same sweet solvent as the hospital case.” “Person or clothing?” Midnight asked.
“Both.
Multiple people share it.” The screen group had contaminated one another deliberately.
Threadhound joined her, left arm hanging uselessly.
“Grey wool fibres appear on nine suspects.” “Transferred clothing,” Tsukauchi said.
“They kept changing coats.” “Can you isolate the person who wore them first?” Threadhound knelt and touched the dock.
“Possibly.” Present Mic reached Aizawa again.
“You still functional?” “Yes.” “Liar.” A barrier formed between them.
Aizawa erased Rampart.
It vanished.
“Where’s Rampart?” Present Mic pointed.
The man stood near the timer, surrounded by a reduced defensive ring.
His organisation was losing ground.
His expression remained calm.
That frightened Aizawa more than anger would have.
“Something else is prepared,” he said.
Rampart raised one hand.
Across the docks, concealed mechanisms activated.
Charges detonated beneath the eastern pier.
Concrete split.
Blue Team’s approach route collapsed into the river.
Cranes released suspended cargo simultaneously.
Three containers fell.
Ectoplasm’s clones scattered.
Two were crushed and vanished into pale residue.
Hidden boats started their engines beneath the western warehouses.
Barriers rose through the water, redirecting the vessels into the docks like weapons.
Additional container doors opened.
More fighters emerged.
Not sixty.
Closer to eighty now.
Mitsuki stared at the monitors.
“How many people does he have?” “Enough to appear larger than any single response,” Nezu said.
Present Mic’s voice shook the dock.
“Gold, protect the officers.
Green, tracker search.
Red, with me.” Rampart lowered his hand.
The timer fell.
00:12:58 Barriers divided the reinforcements.
Blue Team became trapped near the collapsed pier.
Gold Team split between two container lanes.
Green Team was forced towards the water.
Aizawa and Present Mic stood on opposite sides of a translucent wall.
For one brief, cruel moment, hope had entered the battlefield.
Rampart closed his hand around it.
The docks stopped resembling a place built for trade.
They became territory.
Invisible walls sliced roads into cages.
Containers lay overturned, some split open, their contents spilling across the concrete.
Cranes hung at broken angles above the water.
The river burned where fuel had ignited.
Heroes and criminals fought through smoke, silence and shattered light.
At U.A., Midnight stopped trying to follow the entire battle at once.
She divided it into objectives.
“Eraser Head, Rampart suppression.” Aizawa’s remaining borrowed camera showed him climbing over a fallen barrier support.
“Working.” “Present Mic, break communications and clear the north lane.” “On it.” “Ectoplasm, protect captured suspects.
The tracker may be among them.” “Understood.” “Scentinel and Threadhound, isolate Ferric Echo.” Scentinel moved through the smoke.
Threadhound followed, one arm secured against his chest.
“Tsukauchi, interrogations.” “Already begun.” “Nezu, ocean zone.” “Updating.” The timer occupied the corner of every monitor.
00:10:46 Katsuki stood beside Midnight.
Masaru had stopped trying to move him.
Mitsuki worked through shell-company documents with enough force to tear the paper.
The fight became several fights.
Aizawa versus Rampart.
Present Mic versus the organisation’s formation.
Ectoplasm against numbers.
Scentinel and Threadhound against deliberate confusion.
Midnight against the clock.
Aizawa found Rampart through the smoke.
Rampart had abandoned his coat.
Blood marked the side of his white shirt where the capture weapon struck him earlier.
He looked less like a hero now.
More like the man Izuku had described.
Aizawa activated Erasure.
The barriers vanished.
Rampart’s defensive ring attacked.
Aizawa used the first fighter as cover against a pressure blast.
His capture cloth wrapped around a second and pulled him into the path of a third.
Rampart backed towards the river.
Aizawa followed three steps.
Midnight’s voice reached him.
“Tracker first.” He stopped on the fourth.
Rampart smiled.
“Learning?” Aizawa turned away from him.
The smile disappeared.
For the first time, Aizawa had refused the direction Rampart offered.
Rampart lifted one hand.
Nothing happened.
Erasure held.
Aizawa moved towards Scentinel.
Rampart’s defensive ring moved after him, exposing their leader.
Present Mic saw it.
He struck them with a narrow sonic burst.
The formation collapsed.
“Shouta, go.” Aizawa reached the tracker screen.
Scentinel circled four suspects.
“All carry resonance residue.” Threadhound pointed towards their gloves.
“Passed between them.” Tsukauchi held one captured man against a container.
“Which is Shima?” The man laughed through bloodied teeth.
“Timer says nine minutes.” Tsukauchi tightened the restraint.
“Which one?” “Maybe he isn’t here.” Midnight enlarged the faces.
Taro Shima’s missing-person image sat beside them.
One suspect’s facial structure matched despite age and scarring.
Tall.
Gloved.
Silent.
Protected.
He looked towards the river whenever nobody addressed him.
“That one,” Midnight said.
“Black scarf.
Scar beneath left eye.” Aizawa moved.
Three fighters intercepted.
Ectoplasm clones reached them first.
The clones restrained two.
The third tore through one clone with a blade Quirk.
Aizawa erased him and struck once.
The blade vanished.
The man fell.
Shima turned to run.
Scentinel caught his scent.
“Tracker moving west.” Threadhound threw his capture line one-handed.
It wrapped around Shima’s ankle.
Shima hit the ground.
A barrier appeared between him and the heroes.
Aizawa blinked.
Rampart had moved behind a smoke screen.
The wall thickened.
Layered.
“Shima!” Tsukauchi shouted.
“The child dies if you stay silent.” The tracker looked towards Rampart.
Fear answered before words.
Rampart had kept him alive because he was useful.
He would kill him the instant usefulness became risk.
Aizawa found Rampart through a gap.
Erasure activated.
The barrier vanished.
Ectoplasm clones pulled Shima into Hushline’s reduced Quiet Field.
The timer read: 00:07:58 Tsukauchi crouched in front of him.
“Can you locate the container?” Shima’s mouth opened.
A sharp pressure wave struck the group.
Hushline’s field collapsed.
Three clones vanished.
Shima rolled across the dock.
Rampart stood with one hand extended.
Aizawa stared.
His Quirk was still erased.
Yet the barrier had remained for nearly a second after Erasure activated.
Rampart reached inside his shirt.
A compact injector appeared in his hand.
Nezu saw it through a body camera.
“Stop him.” Aizawa moved.
Too far.
Rampart pressed the injector into his neck.
The drug entered.
For one heartbeat, nothing changed.
Then Rampart screamed.
Not from fear.
From the force of his own body becoming too small for his Quirk.
Dark veins spread beneath his skin.
Blood ran from his nose.
His shoulders jerked violently.
The air around the dock fractured.
Barriers appeared everywhere.
Not simple planes.
Layers.
Dozens laid over one another, bending light until sections of the harbour vanished behind warped reflections.
Aizawa activated Erasure.
Most barriers flickered.
Some remained.
“What?” Present Mic shouted.
The drug had not made Rampart immune.
It had created so many overlapping constructs that Aizawa could not suppress each manifestation at once.
Rampart laughed through blood.
His voice sounded damaged.
“Better.” A barrier struck Aizawa and threw him through a wooden crate.
Another lifted a cargo container from the ground.
It rotated in the air.
Present Mic saw the shadow and unleashed a full-force shout.
The sound altered the container’s path by metres.
It still struck the dock.
Concrete exploded.
Heroes fell into the river.
Ectoplasm created another wave of clones.
Rampart closed both hands.
Layered barriers slammed through them.
Twenty clones vanished at once.
Midnight lost six camera feeds.
“No.” Static filled the monitor wall.
Nezu pointed.
“Next feed.” “I can’t see Hizashi.” “Sonar’s camera.” She switched.
Present Mic was alive, half submerged beside a broken pier.
Lockstep anchored him against the current.
Midnight’s knees nearly failed.
“The dark screen was not reality,” Nezu said.
She repeated it through clenched teeth.
“The dark screen was not reality.” The timer fell.
00:05:41 Nezu’s ocean map remained impossibly wide.
He reduced it through one new fact.
Rampart had placed the tracker at the docks.
The tracker’s Quirk required sensing range.
Ferric Echo could not locate marked iron from unlimited distance.
Tsukauchi found Shima’s original Quirk assessment inside an archived salvage record.
Maximum confirmed range: twenty-seven kilometres under ideal conditions.
Nezu redrew the search zone.
Still vast.
Better.
“Get Shima conscious and speaking,” he said.
Scentinel reached the tracker first.
Shima lay behind two barriers.
Aizawa could not maintain Erasure on Rampart while smoke and debris broke sight.
Hushline expanded her field around Shima, muffling the chaos enough for Tsukauchi to approach.
Threadhound pulled residue from the tracker’s glove.
“Same metal signature as the drag marks.” Confirmed.
Tsukauchi grabbed Shima’s collar.
“Direction.” Shima shook his head.
Rampart saw them.
A long barrier formed above the tracker like a blade.
“Move!” Midnight shouted.
Tsukauchi dragged Shima aside.
The barrier cut through the dock.
Shima screamed.
Rampart was trying to kill him.
“Direction!” Tsukauchi demanded.
“I can feel it.” “Where?” “South-east.” “How far?” “I don’t know.” “You’ve tracked it before.” “Twenty kilometres.
Maybe more.
It’s weak.” “Bearing.” Shima’s eyes unfocused.
His Quirk reached through steel, salt water and distance.
“South-east.
Twelve degrees east from the harbour marker.” Nezu entered the bearing.
A line crossed the ocean map.
Combined with the vessel’s travel cone and the twenty-seven-kilometre limit, the search zone narrowed.
Still several square kilometres.
The timer read: 00:03:58 “We need depth,” Nezu said.
Tsukauchi shook Shima.
“How deep?” “I sense iron, not depth.” “Can you guide a vessel?” “Yes.” “Then you are coming.” Rampart roared.
The drug had stripped polish from his voice.
Barriers rose beneath the river and threw water into the air.
A wall of black water crashed across the docks.
Present Mic anchored himself behind Lockstep and screamed into it.
The sound split the wave.
Water divided around the heroes.
Aizawa climbed from the wreckage.
His eyes found Rampart.
Erasure activated.
Half the barriers vanished.
The remainder trembled.
Rampart’s body convulsed.
Blood ran from one eye.
He still smiled.
The timer reached: 00:02:51 Midnight stared.
“No.” Katsuki grabbed her sleeve.
“All Might.” The emergency signal crossed the city map.
Almost there.
Rampart formed one final barrier above Shima.
Thicker than the others.
A crushing plane intended to erase the tracker before the heroes could use him.
Aizawa could not see Rampart through the smoke.
Present Mic was too far.
Ectoplasm’s clones threw themselves over Shima.
The barrier descended.
Then the atmosphere changed.
Pressure crossed the harbour.
The river surface dipped as if something enormous had drawn breath above it.
Containers shook.
Smoke flattened.
Every loose sheet of paper lifted from the dock.
Rampart looked towards the city.
For the first time that night, fear appeared plainly on his face.
A shadow passed over the water.
A massive figure descended.
All Might struck the dock between the falling barrier and the trapped heroes.
Concrete fractured beneath his feet.
The barrier shattered across his shoulders.
The shock wave extinguished burning fuel and sent Rampart’s nearest fighters tumbling backwards.
All Might straightened.
His smile remained.
There was no warmth inside it.
He looked first at the oxygen timer.
00:02:19 Then at Rampart.
“You have endangered that child for the final time.” Izuku did not know how long he had been crying.
Time did not work properly in the dark.
Sometimes he thought the men had only just closed the lid.
Sometimes he thought he had always been inside the box.
The metal pressed against his back, knees and shoulders.
There was not enough room to stand.
Barely enough to turn.
Cold lived in every wall.
Something enormous pressed beyond them.
Water.
The ocean.
Izuku had kicked the lid until his injured feet hurt too much to move.
He had hit it with his hands until his fingers became wet and sticky.
He could not see whether the wetness was blood.
He could not see anything.
“Mum?” His voice sounded smaller each time he used it.
No answer.
He swallowed.
His throat hurt.
“Auntie?” The coffin creaked.
Izuku stopped breathing.
For one frightened moment, he thought someone was opening it.
The metal settled again.
Nothing entered.
“Kacchan?” His head felt heavy.
He forgot what he was going to say next.
There was someone else.
Dark hair.
Warm arms.
A coat placed on the pavement rather than around him.
“Midnight?” No answer.
Izuku pressed his face against the metal.
It was cold, but he felt warm.
Too warm.
His eyelids closed.
He opened them, though the darkness did not change.
“Present Mic?” The name came out wrong.
He tried again.
No sound followed.
His chest hurt.
Each breath seemed too small to finish.
Eraser Head had said he would not have to run alone.
Maybe he was running now.
Maybe heroes were looking in the wrong place again.
Izuku pushed both palms against the lid.
His arms shook.
Nothing moved.
Run to Auntie.
Inko’s voice came from beside him.
Izuku turned his head.
He could not see her.
He knew she was there anyway.
Or thought she was.
“Mum?” Stay awake.
“I’m trying.” His hands slipped.
“I did run.” The words barely existed.
“I got lost.” Inko did not answer.
Izuku imagined her sitting beside him, though there was no space for anyone else.
He imagined her green hair falling across her face.
Her hands touching his cheeks.
Maybe she had found him after all.
“Don’t go.” His breathing slowed.
He tried to remember Auntie Mitsuki’s house.
The bright kitchen.
Kacchan shouting.
A bowl of katsudon.
He tried to remember Midnight holding him in the hospital.
Maybe she did not want him now.
People were hurt whenever they stayed near him.
Mum.
Auntie.
Midnight.
Maybe being taken was his fault.
“Sorry.” The coffin creaked again.
Far away, water moved across metal.
Izuku pressed one scraped palm against the wall.
“Somebody,” he whispered.
His voice barely existed.
No one answered.
His hand slipped down the metal.
In the darkness, his heartbeat slowed.
And the ocean waited.