Koto's POV

I help a family out of their fire escape to Todoroki's ice slide. He ushers them onto the last evacuation bus.

"Another one over here!" Jiro calls from a block down the road. Todoroki runs over to create another ice slide. I place the last child on my lap and slide down to the ground. I lead her and her mom to the bus and move forward with the rest of my team.

But it's when Jiro and I are helping the old man and his cat down that the girl stills, her eyes widening. "We have to go now."

The building rumbles beneath our feet. Dust rains down on our heads, and Jiro and I cover the man with our bodies.

"Let's keep moving," I say, lifting the man onto the slide. But the ice begins cracking before we can help him down.

Jiro looks around, but Todoroki has already run to the next place. "Froppy! Uravity!" The student calls.

From an adjacent city block, Tsu wraps her tongue around my friend and flings her over. Ochaco grabs onto the old man, and lifts him into the air. She blasts her grappling wire down to the main road to deposit him. Jiro and I leap from the window and blast sound at our feet to slow our descent.

But on the main road, Ochaco looks frantically over her shoulder as she taps the bus with her full hand to make it float. "We need to go!"

As I get to the road, I turn and finally see the incoming destruction. It approaches in a wave of dust and debris. The road and buildings crumble in a radius spreading from the hospital.

Tsu wraps her tongue around the front bumper of the bus and begins dragging it away. Deku sprints past us in the opposite direction as we make for the city limits. I look over my shoulder to see him brace his feet and flick a wall of pressurized air at the debris.

The rising wave halts, but the ground continues to crumble. It's not from force, I realize. It's Shigaraki.

"Faster!" I exclaim, illusing beneath my feet and at the back of the bus to get people out faster. Ochaco and Tsu continue evacuating the buildings. "Ingenium!" Iida looks back to Jiro and I upon hearing our shouts and runs back to lend support. We hop onto the back bumper as he pulls the bus outside city limits.

"Attention all," a deep voice calls over our earpieces. "Endeavor, here! I've engaged Shigaraki at the hospital ruins! Anyone who can move without touching the ground needs to form a perimeter! He's heading for the evacuees! Expand the battle perimeter! Start evacuating the city outskirts too!"

How did his damn quirk get so strong? If Shigaraki is affecting the area this far out...I shudder thinking about the wreckage at the hospital. My hand itches to go for Mic's receiver, but I don't want to distract him if he's engaged with a villain. We still have to focus.

From where we stand in the suburbs of Jaku, we can hear the blasts over the wreckage.

"Don't tell me he planted bombs too?" Jiro laments.

But the bursts of light appear high above the wreckage, trailing towards the hospital with another dark speck. "It's Bakugo," I whisper in awe. "And Midoriya."

"They're running into the fray?" Iida exclaims. "Didn't they learn from last time?" At the sound of crunching pavement, we all turn to see Todoroki forming an ice path forward. "Not you too!"

"I'll bring them back," he calls over a shoulder.

Iida makes to go after him, but I put a hand on his elbow to hold him in place. "We need to keep evacuating," I remind him. "They all have quirks that can handle it, no use sending another person to bring them all back."

The boy bristles at the correction, but nods and runs into the suburbs to alert the growing evacuation zone. I return my attention to my friends, ready to figure out a plan, but halt at the rising wave behind them.

The air shimmers with light of every color as the wave of glitter descends upon us. "Get back!" I call then slam the glitter with a boom of sound. This only punches a hole through the incoming attack which the hero–or villain, I guess–hastily reforms and surrounds us with a force that sends us all to our knees.

Glitter? After all this time, she was betraying Nyikang? I don't even let myself consider if I'll have to fight the hero himself on the field today.

The little shards of metal surround us, creating fists to punch us that disappear before we can latch onto them or attack back. Tsu tries to hop to the outside of the cloud, but is slammed back down. Ochaco's quirk can't be activated on something so small, so she covers her face and takes to the ground. Jiro tries to blast the glitter away with her sound, but it does about as much as mine. The hole is quickly repaired.

"This is Glitter!" I exclaim, trying to not get a mouthful of this stuff.

"No shit," Jiro retorts, blasting the onslaught with another boom of sound.

"No, she was the–" I spit out a sparkly mouthful and notice the glob sticks to the ground, the glitter trapped. It gives me an idea. "I interned with her. Froppy! Your spit can paralyze, right?"

She seems to realize what I'm getting at, shooting out her tongue in an unpredictable pattern. The sparkles stick to her mucus, and she spits the colorful blob as a projectile through the cloud. I spot Jiro cringing into the collar of her jacket.

A powerful gust of wind blows the glitter aside, revealing the woman I had gotten so used to calling a mentor. Tsu spits another ball of slime at her, but she deftly dodges it.

I turn to see our saving grace, descending from the clouds like an angel. Or maybe that's just her wings. The "feathers" glow with the light that refracts through them, making our savior look like a stained glass window one would find in a cathedral.

The hero stabilizes herself mid-air, her wings booming as she blasts the glitter back further and further. Her long lavender hair trails in the wind she has kicked up. "I got this," she calls to us, swooping down to punch Glitter in the face. The fallen hero glares up at the stained glass angel that rescued us. "Keep up the evacuations!"

The four of us scramble to our feet and rush from the fight, letting the experienced hero with a better suited quirk handle it, despite her not looking much older than us. I glance over my shoulder, though, as we run. A deep disappointment settles in my stomach as I look at the battling rainbows. What would cause her to run with the villains? My eyes can't help but fill with tears. I tell myself it's leftover sparkles, and continue on with my friends.

•°•°•°•

"Listen up, everyone," Endeavor once again calls over our comms. "Shigaraki's changed tack! He's heading southwest! And he's got hyper regeneration now, so he's not the same as before–" The alert cuts out with static and then goes completely silent. I share a glance with Jiro, and we run out to the street to meet up with our friends.

Ochaco, Tsu, and Iida are already there waiting for us and directing uninjured families out of town.

"I can't get in touch with Todoroki," Iida exclaims, hand to his ear. "Seriously?! After he insisted he'd go bring those troublemakers back to safety!"

Tsu puts a finger to her chin. "Seems like he's out of range of our communications..."

"We should head over there too, shouldn't we?" Ochaco asks, clenching her fists.

"Woah! Hold on! Wait," an evacuee exclaims, holding up his phone for him and his family to see. "What is the news talking about?! What's happening to this country?!"

Iida stalks over to them and demands authoritatively, "Please turn it up!"

The man obeys, turning his volume so we can hear the newscaster's voice, interjected with random buzzing sounds. "There's...within the nearby vicinities...please begin to evacuate immediately. I repeat, there is currently an enormous villain heading northward through Wakayama Prefecture and Gunga Prefecture in a straight path from Kyoto to Jaku."

My attention fades, thinking about all my friends up in Gunga with the rest of the heroes. That villain must have blasted right through their lines. How many people did they hurt?

I can't bear to think of worse options.

A blinding flash disperses over the wreckage of the city, and the shock wave hits us a few moments later.

Another voice comes over the comm, "Leave the instruction of the Jaku City residents to the rescue teams and police!" Burnin', I recognize that voice. "The heroes will now be engaging with the villain! Our priority is now rescuing civilians as well as halting the enemy's advance! Those who are occupied with Shigaraki will not be aware of this situation! We cannot reach out to them due to the jammed signal! Please inform them on foot! Let's go as fast as we can! To save even one more life!"

Ochaco points at where the shock wave has parted the clouds, high above the hospital ruins. "Guys..." Another blast illuminates the sky. The foundations rock beneath us as a ripple of pressure once again spreads outwards.

Our team splits up with just a glance, ready to speed up the evacuation process. Iida extends an arm to me, and I hop onto his back.

He speeds off to the further reaches of the suburb. All the while, I send out an illused message as loud as I can muster. "There is a large villain incoming! He is incredibly destructive! Please evacuate to the South or East to the Osaka, Nara, and Hyogo Prefectures around the perimeter of the city! There is a large villain incoming..."

•°•°•°•

"I see the huge villain," Ochaco informs us over our earpieces. "He's fast! Accelerate evacuations!"

Iida changes direction sharply, and I tighten my grip, trying to not get thrown off. "Sorry," I mumble in his ear.

He approaches a distant blue glow in barely two seconds and skids to a stop before an older hero and Nejire with Jiro on her back. Nejire blasts a Nomu back with her luminescent power. Since when did they show up?

"The heroes within the hospital wreckage haven't gotten out," the hero observes. "They're still fighting, why?"

"We believe Shigaraki has deactivated their comm system," Iida explains. "There's only one way to get the message to them."

The hero presses his finger to his ear, activating the comm system. "Shigaraki has jammed the signal. I'm trusting those of you who can fly to pass on the message! Get word to the heroes fighting near the hospital!"

I watch as Nejire deposits Jiro on the ground. I'm about to hop off of Iida's back, but before I can, he sprints into motion at Nejire's side. "I will accompany them!"

"But you can't fl–whoa, he's fast!"

I cling on as tightly as I can to Iida's back as he races towards the battle.