Darkest Before Dawn - 110

Chapter 110

[Kazuki Endo]

His hand twitched at the same time as the Beowolf swiped, claws cutting through robots.

The whole incident that was going on was terrible, terrorists or whatever were endangering everyone on the island. He was also being flooded with negativity levels that were equal if not worse than the Black Rampage. The cherry on top of that shitcake was the pain All Might by himself was filling his chest with.

And yet, Kazuki found himself kind of appreciating the event.

Or, at least, he appreciated the fact that he was given a chance to explore his Quirk further. The whole thing had pushed him to do so, at least. He knew his shadow control had potential, but he wondered if he’d actually have dedicated time to it if not for the current circumstances in order to get messages across and be discreet about it.

There was also the fact that Kazuki had never had so much direct control of a Grimm as he did at that very moment with the Alpha Beowolf. Most of the time, they were like puppets, or maybe characters in an RTS game, with more or less control imposed on them, but still. Now though, it was like he was possessing the creature.

Kazuki had literally nothing to do with his own body trapped where he was. Hina would call for him if he was needed for anything or if anything happened. So, that meant he could focus a hundred percent of his mind into that one Grimm. He could see more clearly through its eyes now that he didn’t have to look around with his own too. He could hear with its ears, since there was nothing to hear on his end. He could move its paws like they were his hands and its legs like they were his own.

‘Definitely something to work on,’ he mused, frowning. He wasn’t used to that, so his control slipped a little here and there. Every so often, after all, something would happen in the room he was in with Hina and the rest of the heroes, and it’d break his concentration. Still, at least even when that happened, he maintained good enough control for the Grimm not to do anything stupid or counterproductive.

Something must have shown on his face though, because-

“Everything alright?” Hina asked him and he grunted.

“I found them,” he answered and he saw her grin before turning his focus back to the Grimm. That had been kind of close, but he’d moved as fast as he could. He hadn’t known precisely where his friends were nor how to get there.

He’d had to follow instructions from guests around the room that knew the place better than he did for the most part. Until, that is, he came across the scent of his friends. The Beowolf’s improved sense of smell came in very handy at that moment. From there, it had been a matter of not getting blocked by any grunts or robots, which was easier said than done.

Kazuki could get away with ignoring them though, for the most part. His Grimm could recover from anything so long as he was willing to spend the negativity on it. Most of the time, there came a point when it wasn’t worth it anymore. Too much damage and it’d be not only inefficient but also slower to heal a Grimm than to make a new one.

In this instance though, he couldn’t get rid of this one Grimm to make another. He also had entirely too much negativity, so he could channel it no problem into making the creature recover and keep going when it was damaged. It worried him a little though, that the Alpha Beowolf might get too damaged for use and he might take too long to repair it. Furthermore, it worried him that some villain might have a Quirk that could completely erase the Grimm in some way.

If that happened, then he’d be screwed, because he’d have to make a new one and that was not a process he wanted to go through again.

“Anything we can do?” Hina asked and he paused, letting the Grimm do its thing for a bit, only making sure that it attacked actual enemies and kept moving forward to wherever his friends wanted to get. “You’re our only way to help, Kazuki. Just say the word,” she added and blinked at her.

But, most of all, he blinked at the looks that heroes across the room were sending him. His back straightened almost unconsciously and he took that in for a moment. He really had a room full of heroes ready to help him, huh? Not only that, but there were researchers and tinkerers too. And…

He nodded, frowning and concentrating on his shadow. Sending messages was more complicated then and there than it was before he had a Grimm to keep an eye on, but he’d gotten good practice done so far. So, he set out to communicate a few things. That’s how he found himself short of his hearing, because someone had a Quirk that blocked someone’s senses.

And that came in very handy to better focus on what his Grimm was sensing, at least with its hearing. He kind of needed his sight and all the other senses weren’t relevant enough to bother. Hina would signal him if he needed to pay attention to something and his hearing would be returned then. Otherwise, he could now fully commit to hearing what was going on with his friends.

From there, he also got more information regarding the general area his friends were in and what to expect from people from I-Island, researchers and tinkerers. There were the windmills to keep in mind too, for example, if they wanted to try and get to their destination from the outside, provided they could fly. Which they couldn’t, as far as Kazuki was aware.

Now, if he’d made a Nevermore instead of a Beowolf, that’d be a different matter.

Alas…

‘Wait just a second…’

[}-o-{]

[Momo Yaoyorozu]

That was not how she wanted her night to go, at all.

She’d envisioned some dull meetings with acquaintances of her parents. She’d thought she might need to smile and pretend she cared for the business talk they engaged on. If she was lucky, some of them might actually be nice and interesting, but she’d doubted it. No offense to any of them, but they were there to talk to her parents, not her, and it showed.

However, she’d been hoping that she might be able to slip away and spend time with her friends sooner rather than later. She’d even managed to put on one of her nicer dresses without raising any suspicion, which she was grateful for. It’d be rather awkward to explain that she wasn’t dressing to impress anyone when she definitely was.

Sadly, neither one nor the other thing had happened. Momo hadn’t even gotten to the party at all, really and that was… not a loss, really, but the entire villain attack thing certainly put a damper on any joy she might have felt. Instead, she was in a corridor, surrounded by murder robots, exhausted, weak and somewhat sick from overuse of her Quirk. All around her, she could see her friends in similar states of exhaustion and dealing with Quirk side-effects too.

Minoru was bleeding a concerning amount even though he’d stopped using his Quirk. Toru seemed to be fairly injured, if the way she moved was any indication. Kirishima looked to be even more on his last legs than Momo herself felt. And everyone else looked half mad trying to keep up with things.

So, when an Alpha Beowolf had jumped in and started clawing and chewing at the robots, Momo had been very reassured. However, it had taken her only a moment to realize that things weren’t adding up well. First, there was only one Grimm. Second, Kazuki hadn’t made an appearance right after the creature. Third… things weren’t looking all that much better, even though it was a relief to have another damage dealer around.

“He’s not here,” she heard Togeike say, giving voice to Momo’s fears. “He’s in the room with the other heroes and the hostages. Of course he sent only one Grimm,” the girl continued, as if frustrated. Momo almost thought she was annoyed by her hopeful thinking before realizing that the General course student had no way of knowing that. That’s when she realized that Togeike was likely chastising herself.

“At least it’s an Alpha,” Monoma muttered through gritted teeth. “Don’t stop moving!” the boy barked then and Momo snapped out of her thoughts at that, realizing that, indeed, they had stopped making their way through the corridor.

“Come on, guys! We’re almost there!” a voice called and for a second Momo thought it was Shield once more before realizing that no, it’d been Midoriya this time, right before sending a punch forward that sent a bunch of robots flying against a wall. With a deep breath in, she moved to support Kirishima on their way. Momo might not be in any condition to keep fighting, but she could still help, at least.

“Thanks,” the redheaded boy mumbled and she was quick to reassure him that it was the least she could do. Quite literally at that, considering he’d held on much more than she had. “Are we really almost there though?” Kirishima asked weakly.

Momo could definitely empathize with that sentiment. It felt like Shield had been telling them that for hours – minutes, most likely, but still – and there was no sign of that being even remotely true, unfortunately. They just kept moving through halls, finding doors and fighting robots. And every single time, she wondered if it was finally going to end, only to hear the same words again and again.

She had half a mind to snap at them and-

“Tell the truth, damnit!” Minoru called, rushing towards where Hagakure seemed to have tripped and helping her up. The invisible girl was, most likely, already out of the fight too, if Momo had to guess. “We need to know how much we have to push. Stop lying!”

A tad harsher than she’d have put it, but Momo didn’t fault him at all. She’d just been considering snapping at them in a similar fashion. She didn’t know how much she could take being told they were “almost there” only to receive another set of directions after they reached their “destination”. That was how she’d pushed herself forward before, but she had definitely felt the discouraging moments one after the other.

So, she was very grateful when, after a pause, Shield spoke much more honestly.

“Two doors, three halls and an elevator!” the girl admitted and that… that sounded like almost there to Momo. It seemed to be the case for everyone else too, because suddenly they were pushing forward much more determinedly than before. Not that she blamed them the slightest bit. Momo herself was so very relieved by that information that she almost dropped to the ground. 

She paused then, when Kazuki’s Alpha Beowolf clawed a robot into the ground and stopped moving. It caught her attention because it proceeded to growl and flex the other hand’s claws, but little else. The creature hadn’t stopped moving since it had reached them so… Why had it stopped now?

Her answer came in the shape of the creature’s extended shadow from where Grimm slowly started forming. They formed a lot slower than when Kazuki did though and she immediately saw the problem in that. The robots would interrupt before it was done, there was no doubt. However, if they could increase their numbers-

“Stop!” she called and everyone turned towards her like she was crazy. Momo immediately pointed towards the Beowolf. “Cover for it! We’ll get more numbers!”

It took Togeike and Monoma less than a second to understand and snap into action.

She appreciated that, but she also felt a little upset, even if she would never tell anyone that.

[}-o-{]

[Kazuki Endo]

‘Ok, Grimm shadows work just as well as my own for creation,’ he noted to himself as he made two normal Beowolves and a Nevermore appear. ‘A lot slower, feels different, but it works,’ Kazuki mused as he continued working. It felt somewhat like when he tried to tinker a new Grimm, except this time he knew what he had to do. The energies flowed differently though and the whole process felt awkward.

Like spending his whole life using one internet browser before swapping to another. It was functionally the same, but it wasn’t the same, so it took some getting used to. He wondered if it’d always feel that way or if he could train until this version of his summoning caught up to his usual one.

Good thing Momo had caught up on his struggles though, because that’d have been awkward if she hadn’t. That said, he grinned widely when he finally managed to make the Grimm appear. Now they were talking. Two regular Beowolves was plenty compared to no Beowolves, and that wasn’t even counting the Nevermore, since it might need to be used to carry someone. He’d have added the Alpha to that, but he wanted to make more Grimm.

… Just in case though, he’d steer clear of his limit, because he didn’t fancy his chance controlling that many with as much negativity as he was picking up. No, it was better to stay within extra safe numbers. Plus Ultra safe numbers, as it were. The last thing he needed was to cause a Black Rampage in an international spot.

Not even Hina in all her PR godhood would be able to help him fix that.

“Can that carry a person?” he heard a girl said, someone he didn’t recognize. She was looking at his Nevermore, from what Kazuki gathered. Good, she’d caught on quickly. He’d been a little worried he wouldn’t be able to get the idea across well enough and would have to make do with whatever plan they currently worked with.

“It can!” Mina exclaimed, she sounded tired and he was feeling… thirst coming from her? It was intense too, which made him think that it was something related to Quirk overuse. That wasn’t good, but at least Kazuki could cover for them now. All of them were kind of beginning to struggle, by the looks of it.

“We need to fly up the tower, please,” the blond girl said, talking straight to the Nevermore and Kazuki nodded the bird creature’s head. Then he shifted its position so that she could get on and Midoriya was brought along too. That was a good plan, someone needed to know how to fight wherever they were going.

As the Nevermore took off though, Kazuki cracked his neck. He was kind of pushing his control, he realized, because he was trying to keep tight control of the Nevermore and tight control of the Alpha Beowolf, from across whatever distance there was between him and them and with all the negativity around… He was not having an easy time of things. Still though, he took a second to look at Hina, who looked equal parts encouraging and concerned for him, and took heart in her at the same time that he tried to gather strength from all the people he could feel through his sense.

They needed him, so he couldn’t be moping about.

Kazuki took a deep breath in and made his Alpha Beowolf fight with the newly created regular Beowolf pack. At the same time, he made the Nevermore fly through the corridors, following the blonde’s directions. Eventually, they reached the outside, with all the windmills generating energy for the research facilities. From there, it was all the way up.

Using what little spare mind he had – which was not a lot at the moment – he wrote a message for Hina, asking if there were any good medics they could get going fast enough when everything was said and done. Because his friends all could use some professional help once the entire thing was dealt with. They weren’t in a critical state by any means, but they were bad enough that he didn’t want to have any delays getting attention to them.

Minoru worried him more than everyone else though, because Quirk overuse had more than momentary effects on him. He’d hate to see the guy get his growth stunted even further than it already was. Although, maybe they could leverage saving I-Island into getting some help? That was an idea.

‘Focus,’ he told himself, shaking his head and trying to do just that. He wasn’t very successful, admittedly. His thoughts remained stubbornly scrambled and off, but he’d have to pull through. ‘Ignore the emotions, focus on what you need to do. Take deep breaths. Keep the muscles relaxed,’ he continued and it kind of helped, but not much.

‘This entire shitshow can’t be over fast enough,’ he thought, letting out a weary sigh.

That is, until he felt a sharp, disturbing spike of pain from the tower his Nevermore was flying towards. The most unnerving part was that the pain was followed by another spike… from a different person. Something was going on there and it was not good at all. Taking a deep breath in and clenching his jaw, he prepared to dismiss some of his Beowolves in favor of summoning more Grimm from his Nevermore.

He had a feeling that they were far from done with the whole mess.

On top of that, the girl was called Shield, if he heard the others right. That was concerning, since she was probably related to the one scientist that the villains had taken. That and the pain spikes Kazuki had picked up on didn’t bode well for them, at all.

And this was proven right when the doors were opened and they saw two men on the ground with blood pooling under them.

Shield being one of them.

‘This is bad… this is really bad,’ he thought, taking in the scene, the villains arrayed around the room and the villain leader standing over two people that’d been shot and were lying on the ground. The gun was still in the guy’s hand too, which was all the more concerning.

He wouldn’t be able to make anything with his Nevermore, he realized, because he’d kind of need it to help Midoriya and the Shield girl. So, in a split second decision, Kazuki froze one of the Beowolves that were with his friends and started making Nevermores to bring up the tower. It’d mean more Grimm to keep under control, but the situation was calling for that.

He had not expected to be going straight for the leader of whatever villain group was attacking. They had said it was for the sake of fixing the security system. Was that where all the villains had gone? Why?

Almost immediately, Midoriya jumped into the fray and Kazuki wondered if it’d have killed the guy to buy some time instead of all out fighting. Alas, he’d have to make do with what he had and shoot Nevermore feathers at every villain in sight, hoping the bird creature wouldn’t be taken out before he could bring back up. On the fortunate side, Midoriya was very distracting in all his mini All Might glory.

It was difficult to ignore the guy that could punch his way through pillars of metal, he supposed.

Still, Kazuki made a mental note of what he could observe of the villain leader’s Quirk. It was some kind of metal manipulation, was his best guess. By the looks of it though, the man needed to be in contact with whatever he was trying to control, considering he planted his hand on the metal of the tower.

The problem was that the entire place was filled with metal for the guy to use his Quirk on.

So, as the fight went on, Kazuki used focus that he didn’t really have at the moment to write a message for Hina to keep a close eye on him in case he went out of control. It made his Alpha Beowolf slip a little from his control, but if he made sure all its aggression was directed at the robots, then it’d be fine. Which it very nearly hadn’t been, because one of his friends got too close and got the Grimm’s attention.

But at least he managed to do what he’d set out to.

With Hina making sure he didn’t go Black Rampage, it was just a matter of trying to keep all his Grimm under control. Not easy, but at least if he messed up, it wouldn’t fix a problem by creating a bigger problem. He had a feeling people wouldn’t be very appreciative towards that. It was a hunch of his, really.

Still, he took a deep breath in and tried his best to keep everything well under control. Easier said than done, but Kazuki would rather not cause any kind of incident because he screwed up. Hopefully, if the Shield girl managed to fix the security system, the emotions would calm and he’d be able to relax a little more.

For the moment though, he had to put up with things.

Mainly the fact that mini-Shield wasn’t moving and they kind of needed her to. So, he did what he could, smacking her with his Nevermore’s wing and pointing away as best he could. She seemed to get the memo though, thankfully, and started making a run for it. Kazuki decided to follow her as closely as he could and make sure nobody got in her way.

If she was the key to restoring the security system of the island, then she was the main priority of the entire situation. ‘Ok, let’s do this,’ he thought when he finally managed to form a new batch of Nevermores. They took flight immediately and Kazuki was definitely feeling the strain in his control. Three Beowolves plus the Alpha and three Nevermore plus the one he’d made before. Not crazy numbers, especially with an Alpha that made controlling better, but in the situation…

Kazuki really needed something to calm the island down. His focus was all over the place. Not only that, but with his attention split as it was, it became more difficult to “see” through his Grimms’ eyes and hear through their ears, even if he was still doing nothing himself. Too many sources of feedback, he supposed.

‘Just a little more,’ he told himself, doing his best to keep all the Grimm firmly in his metaphorical grasp. Shield would get everything under control and people would stop worrying and panicking. Kazuki had to believe that. Nevermind the fact that the security going back online would mean the heroes could act.

Although, he wondered how much those would be able to do. He hadn’t seen any big hitters that he knew of other than All Might. The big guy wouldn’t be able to do much though, probably. He was probably barely holding on as it was. Kazuki imagined he’d go and de-power at some out of sight spot and that’d be that.

And if he didn’t, then he’d need all the help he could get to make sure nothing got out.

Somehow, Kazuki imagined that latter one would be the case, because… It was All Might. The guy couldn’t let go of a pickpocket incident if it happened within sight. So, he needed to prepare to help make sure the entire situation was over as soon as possible so the guy didn’t continue killing himself.

‘Where do you think you’re going?’ he thought, scowling when he noticed that the villain leader was taking Shield – the older – and a suitcase with him and leaving. Midoriya was kind of contained, unfortunately and his Nevermore was occupied keeping the grunts away from Shield – the younger – and… generally fighting them. ‘Come on, there has to be something I can do here to-’

And that’s when he saw the “EMERGENCY” reading on the screen at the stage shift back to normal.

‘Yes! God, I could kiss that girl.’

He grinned widely immediately afterwards, feeling the emotions calming down all over the island.

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How’s it going?

I had more fun with this chapter, I’ll admit, which is nice. There were some points where I struggled, I’ll admit and they do feel a little… Oh well, here’s to hoping that it’s just me. If not, well, it is what it is.

Still, I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter.

Discord Link: discord.gg/UTDransjJZ

Random Question: What fic did you read last before this chapter?

See you.