Minoru scrambled around the trunk of the tree Sato had slung him into until the bulk of it was between him and the nomu, and peered around it to take stock.

  This situation was not good. They’d been training for locating and taking down individual villains, not tanking damage from a nomu. Additionally, Aizawa sensei wouldn’t be able to accomplish much with his Erasure against a nomu, and Shigaraki was somewhere in the trees no doubt readying a surprise attack.

  On the plus side, it appeared that they only needed to worry about Shigaraki and the nomu at present, and this nomu, while physically imposing, did not appear to be very smart. Additionally, although Aizawa was now physically closer to the nomu, the big thing was ignoring him in favor of turning towards Sato. With Shigaraki in the equation, it was possible he might change its orders, but Minoru would bet that he’d told it to attack kids or something similar.

  Which gave him something to work with. “The nomu is All Might crossed with Vlad King!” he called to his fellow students. “We’re aiming for distraction, not defeat! Sensei, you need to shut down Shigaraki! He’s a bad Quirk matchup for all of us.”

  Aizawa had pulled his mask up, so Minoru couldn’t see his expression, but judging by how long he paused, Minoru would bet he was debating with himself.

  “Don’t put yourselves in too much danger,” he finally called to the students at large. “I’ll make this quick.” And without saying anything further, he vaulted into the trees in the direction Shigaraki had gone.

  Minoru turned back to the nomu, which had been about to jump after Sato when Ashido doused its back with an influx of acid that caused it to whirl in place, skin sizzling.

  As it lunged her way, she grabbed a piece of tape left hanging by Sero and sent herself whipping around the trunk and out of harm’s way as the nomu crashed past.

  “Roles!” shouted Minoru, and started working his way along a nearby branch toward the next tree over.

  “Distraction!” shouted Ashido, already several trees away from the incensed nomu.

  “Support!” yelled Sero.

  “Distraction!” cried Kirishima, already running toward the nomu to give Ashido a better chance to get away. “Hey ugly!”

  “Eyes out,” came Kaminari’s voice from the general direction Shigaraki and Aizawa had gone.

  “I’mma hit it with a tree,” grunted Sato, tossing back another packet of sugar and then striding toward a sapling that was growing nearby.

  Minoru had been about to shout his own assumed role, but that brought him up short. Sato was going to what? “Eyes out,” he called belatedly.

  With a wordless shout, Sato tore the sapling out of the ground, roots and all, spun, lumbered forward several steps, and swung the tree like the world’s largest baseball bat directly into the face of the nomu where it crouched after driving its drill bit arm into the ground as it tried to pin a struggling Kirishima to the forest floor.

  The tree disintegrated in an explosion of wood chips and the nomu was sent stumbling back with a keening cry of rage, allowing Sero to shoot a line of tape and drag Kirishima out of range and into the trees.

  Holy shit, Minoru hadn’t thought that would work at all. But as much as he would like to keep watching, he’d volunteered to be another eyes out, which meant he needed to help Kaminari try to identify any additional threats.

  He worked his way around the trunk of the tree he’d moved to and scanned the forest. He didn’t see any hint of Shigaraki, but just in case he started scattering grapeshot in likely walking paths nearby, focusing on the idea of them sticking to the ground and Shigaraki but nothing else.

  His grapeshot wouldn’t hold the villain for long at all, of course, but it would at least give them a couple seconds to react.

  While he did that, he tried to keep track of the fight with the nomu. Currently Sato and Kirishima were both at opposite ends of the impromptu clearing that had formed as a result of the battle; Sero was in a tree off to the side helping maneuver them out of trouble and—judging by the tape hanging off one of the chainsaw arms—trying, and failing, to bind the nomu when he had a chance; and Ashido was whizzing around the edges of the fight, dodging in and out to distract the nomu at critical moments and enabling Sato and Kirishima to regain their distance when it closed with one of them.

  “Ashido,” yelled Kaminari, “coming in behind you!”

  Ashido twisted and ducked, and Shigaraki’s lunge from behind a tree sent his hand sailing harmlessly over her head. She immediately sent herself sliding backwards out of his range.

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  “Sensei!” screamed Minoru. “Shigaraki is over here!”

  “You damn brats,” snarled Shigaraki. “Be like the mobs you are, and just die already!” He suddenly lunged forward, closing the distance between him and Kirishima, and before anyone could react he slapped his hand down on Kirishima’s shoulder.

  Kirishima froze for a moment, but nothing happened.

  “That’s getting really, really old, Eraserhead,” said Shigaraki.

  Aizawa strode from the trees, capture tape whipping in a cloud around him.

  “Fine,” said Shigaraki, now sounding tired more than anything. “We can do a rehash. Nomu! Protect me!”

  The nomu immediately leapt across the clearing at Aizawa, and several things happened in quick succession.

  Shigaraki whirled in place, hand seeking Kirishima once more. Kirishima fell sideways as Sero snagged him with his tape and gave it a tug, causing Shigaraki’s deadly fingers to barely brush the tips of his hair. The nomu swung a pair of chainsaws at Aizawa, both of which he barely dodged.

  And Sato hit Shigaraki with another tree. The villain cried out, and lacking the nomu’s bulk was sent flying through the air to impact a fully grown tree with a crash. The nomu whirled, took one step toward Sato, and then froze in place.

  Where Shigaraki had impacted the tree, nothing was left but a sort of black ooze that was disintegrating as they watched.

  Sato dropped his tree with a thud. “Sorry,” he grunted. “I didn’t mean to hit him that hard.”

  “That wasn’t Shigaraki,” said Aizawa, striding over to the tree even as he kept an eye on the suddenly quiescent nomu. “That must have been some sort of clone.”

  Ashido darted over to Kirishima and pulled him to his feet, all the while watching the nomu nervously. “Why is the nomu just standing there?”

  Minoru had been climbing down from the tree he was in, and he dropped the final few feet to the ground. “Shigaraki—or the clone of Shigaraki, I guess—told it to protect him. But he doesn’t need protection anymore.”

  “Is everyone alright?!” Kaminari came running into the clearing, before sliding to a stop as he saw the nomu. “Whoa!” Sparks jumped to life around him.

  “Stand down,” said Aizawa. “Until the real Shigaraki gives it another order, that thing likely isn’t a threat. Minoru, Sero, bind it as well as you can. Ashido, Kirishima, be ready to pull them to safety if it starts moving again. After that, I need you all to travel as a group down the left-hand path and link up with any Class B and Class A students you can find. Capture or incapacitate any villains you feel safe confronting, but your priority is to keep yourselves and anyone you find safe and regroup at the cabin.”

  “What about you, Sensei?” asked Kaminari.

  “I’m cutting through the trees. I need to rally the other pro heroes, find out why Mandalay still hasn’t said anything, and get a message out to the other students to make sure they know to use their Quirks to defend themselves.”

  Minoru frowned, looking up from where he was using grapeshot to glue Sero’s tape to the nomu. That was a good point. He remembered Mandalay using her Telepathy Quirk in his past life to warn everyone what was going on as soon as the villains attacked. Were the other pro heroes unaware of what was going on? Or did something happen to Mandalay? He didn’t remember Shigaraki participating in the attack his first time around, so things had definitely changed.

  “I think this is the best we can do,” said Sero, and he and Minoru stepped back. The nomu was now attached to every single thing nearby with strands of tape and/or grapeshot. Minoru was pessimistic that it would hold it, but maybe the sound of it destroying so many nearby trees in its efforts to get clear would warn anyone nearby.

  “Good,” said Aizawa. “Now get going. Stay safe.”

  Without further ado, he slung out some capture tape and launched himself into the trees.

  “Let’s get out of here,” said Ashido, giving the nomu a nervous glance. “That thing is giving me the creeps.”

  “Agreed,” said Minoru. “Sero, are you up for scouting ahead?”

  Sero winced. “Yeah, I’ve got a bit left in me. I don’t think I’m going to be much use if we run into any villains, though.”

  “Plus Ultra,” said Minoru flatly.

  “Plus Ultra, indeed,” said Sero.

  “Ha,” laughed Kaminari. “I’ll scout things out on the ground. I didn’t do anything other than sit in a tree just now.”

  Minoru eyed Ashido, who wasn’t even able to muster up her typical grin, and nodded. “Sounds good. I’ll stick with Sato, Ashido, and Kirishima.”

  All of the kids paused, as a very distinct sound sounded from the direction of the right-hand path.

  “What was that?” asked Kirishima. “Someone’s Quirk? Firecrackers?”

  “No,” said Minoru, stomach sinking. He recognized the sound all too well; he’d heard it far too often in his past life. “Those were gunshots.”

  “One of the villains brought a gun?” said Sero.

  “I have to—sorry, guys, I have to go help,” said Kirishima, nervous energy shedding off him as he practically bounced up and down. “I mean—my Quirk—I can’t let someone shoot my classmates!” He didn’t wait for a response, just immediately ran off toward the right-hand path.

  “I’ll back him up!” blurted Ashido, racing after him.

  “Damn it,” muttered Minoru. Looked like they were either splitting the party, which he was really loathe to do with the likes of Shigaraki running around, or else he was going to have to ignore Aizawa’s instructions.

  Sero shot him an inquisitive look, before his face hardened. “I’ll go after them, try to scout the situation and keep them out of trouble. Just…stay safe, guys.” Without wasting any more time, he shot a line of tape up into the trees and disappeared after Kirishima and Ashido.

  “Well, looks like you’re stuck with us,” said Kaminari with a nervous laugh as he stared into the forest where their friends had run. “So what’s the plan? Think I should still scout ahead? Or should we follow those three?”

  Minoru shook his head. “No. Now that it’s just the three of us, we should stick together. And I think we should keep to sensei’s plan; if there are any students who haven’t realized what’s going on, they might still be traveling this way and we need to make sure they turn back for the cabin.”

  He wracked his brain, trying to remember anything about a gun-wielding villain from his past, but came up blank. He definitely didn’t remember anyone with gunshot wounds either, though, so maybe they just had awful aim? Or perhaps more things had changed than simply Shigaraki showing up.

  In any case, unless he was willing to change his mind and go chasing after his classmates, there wasn’t anything he could do about it. He’d just have to trust them.

  “Let’s go,” Minoru said, striding toward darkness of the left-hand path. “And keep your eyes open. Who knows what we’ll run into.”

  Sato and Kaminari followed him into the darkness.