His hands were shaking, his whole body coursing with adrenaline. Never had he used his quirk to such an extent. The amount of power he felt, not only was it unfamiliar, it was frightening. He was scared of it. Scared of losing control. Whether or not he had managed to subdue all the villains, he didn't care to find out. Perhaps someone more confident than he, or more reckless, would have made certain, but for him it wasn't important. What was important was that he had a chance to escape without risking someone else getting harmed. In a streak of light, he flew away from the scene, Ashido still trailing behind him, and set them down at the outskirts of the blizzard zone.

"Are you alright?" He asked her.

"I'm okay." She nodded. "Thanks to you."

She seemed, understandably, a little shaken. Her voice was unsteady, and her heart was racing in her chest, but physically she seemed fine, at least from what he could tell.

"It's safe to assume the others are fighting." (L/N) said. "They might need our help."

"Are you okay to keep going?" Ashido asked in concern. "You shouldn't wear yourself out. If you do, you'll end up getting hurt."

"I'm fine. Besides, I don't plan on fighting." (L/N) said. "The villains underestimated us, so I doubt they'll be expecting anyone to provide reinforcements, especially so quickly. We can use that to our advantage. If I catch them off guard, I can use their hesitation to safely gather our classmates. You don't have to accompany if you don't want to. I can drop you at the plaza with Thirteen and the others."

Ashido shook her head. "That'll just waste time." She said. "Besides, one of our friends could be in trouble right now."

(L/N) nodded. "The fire zone is closest, so we'll head there first."

With that, a platform of light formed underfoot and lifted them into the air, encompassing them in a sphere as it flew in the direction of the domed area of the USJ that housed the blazing inferno, where inside a single student was barely managing to keep one step ahead of his enemies.

For the past fifteen minutes Mashirao Oijiro had been jumping between lampposts and rubble, doing his best to outrun the villains pursuing him. Every so often an opportunity presented itself for him to land a quick strike, disorienting the enemy before he once again disappeared into the flames. Hit and run tactics had been serving him well thus far, but he knew they wouldn't last. There were too many enemies for him to handle alone, and his strikes were few and far between. Worse still was the effect the heat was having on him. The soles of his feet and his tail were raw and red, and he was beginning to feel the effects of dehydration. His movements were slower, and his vision was starting to blur. Even if he found a place to hide, the heat would do him in before the villains ever found him. He had to get out. But how? They had blocked off every exit, leaving him no escape.

He leapt off the top of a burning building, escaping a group of villains that had chased him to the roof. Tucking his knees to his chest, he landed on a fire escape on the building across from him. As his feet made contact with the hot metal, he felt the structure give way. Several bolts came free of the brick wall as the fire escape began to tilt. Six stories he fell, landing with a painful crash as heavy pieces of metal fell on top of him. He was pinned.

He looked up to see the villains encircling him, sinister grins plastered across their faces. One of them broke away and approached his trapped figure, cracking his knuckles before preparing to strike. Oijiro closed his eyes and turned his face, but just as he braced himself for the inevitable first strike, a loud crash sounded from above. Sunlight flooded the dome as part of the ceiling fell. The villains quickly stepped back out of the way of the falling steel and a sudden blinding flash of light made them all avert their gaze.

As he kept his eyes closed tightly, Oijiro felt the rubble lifting from his body. Squinting, he was surprised to see the villains shrinking as the ground beneath him grew further and further away. He looked up to see his savior and found Ashido smiling back at him. Behind her stood (L/N), his blindfolded gaze set off in the distance as their bubble set off for its next destination.

Tokoyami and Koda they found in the squall zone, cornered inside a building. Oijiro leapt in through the window, taking a few off-guard villains out with his tail before all three were encased in (L/N)'s protective sphere. The shipwreck area was already empty by the time they arrived, but Ashido spotted a floating pair of pink and blue striped gloves floating near a collection of frozen villains in the landslide zone.

"I'm going to drop you five at the entrance before heading to the mountain zone." (L/N) said as they descended towards those of Class 1A that had not been swept up in the warp villain's attack.

"Guys! Over here!" Ururaka called, as if they hadn't already been headed in her direction. "Are you all okay?" She asked as the sphere melted away.

"We're all fine, thanks to (L/N) here." Oijiro said.

"Any word of the others?" Tokoyami asked.

"Nothing yet," Satou answered, "but now that All Might is here, we've got nothing to worry about."

"All Might's here?" Ashido asked as she looked over her shoulder.

Sure enough, from the central plaza they could unmistakably make out The Symbol of Peace's large and reassuring presence squaring off against the large birdlike creature that had been warped in with the rest of the villains.

"We're saved!" Hakagure cheered, her boots lifting off the ground several inches.

"I'm going back out there." (L/N) said abruptly.

"What, are you crazy?" Satou asked. "You can't go back out there, it's too dangerous!"

"Some of our classmates are still out there." He replied. "They might need our help."

"But All Might is here." Ururaka said.

"All Might is busy fighting. He can't be everywhere at once."

"But..." Ashido started.

"Students."

The eight students standing at the top of the staircase turned around where ten feet away Thirteen was lying on the ground, Hanta Sero and Mezou Shoji kneeling next to her. At her beckon, they all walked towards her.

"All Might is here, yes," she said weakly, "but we're not out of the woods yet. We don't know how many more villains there are inside the USJ. Or how long it will take for the other teachers to arrive. (L/N)," she said, now addressing him directly, "as your teacher, your safety is my primary concern. I can't allow you to put yourself back in a dangerous situation."

"But I can..."

"Listen to me." She interrupted. "Principal Nezu has told me about your limited control over your quirk. If you were to go out there, you could end up in just as much danger as the people you're trying to save. Answer me honestly, (L/N); if you were to fight, do you really believe that you could guarantee your friends' safety? That you could save them without endangering yourself or your classmates?"

(L/N) nodded resolutely. "I do."

The others looked at him.

"Then go." Thirteen said. "You have a responsibility. To use your quirk to protect those in danger and save those who are in need of saving. You can be a hero. I believe in you."

The others watched as he took flight, the white aura surrounding his body lifting him into the sky. A streak of light trailed behind him as he made for the mountain zone. Ururaka's hair blew around her face, the wind whistling in her ears. She, like the rest of her classmates, didn't know much about (L/N). He was quiet, and he seemed to avoid them. She hadn't much bothered to try to get to know him. She didn't know what drove him, like she did Midorya and Iida. Why he wanted to become a hero. But as she watched him fly off into the distance, she was overcome with a feeling; one day, he would become one of the world's greatest heroes.

He could hear her from off in the distance. Yaoyorozu. Her and the girl she had been partnered with during All Might's combat training. Jiro's voice reached his ears, monologuing in an attempt to distract one of the villains they were up against.

"Nice try." He heard a voice say, accompanied by the feint crackling of electricity. "Think you can distract me that easily? Big mistake, sweetheart. I'm not some dumb thug that can be outsmarted by a couple of kids. You need to learn to take hostage situations more seriously."

The sound of pained groans and shifting rock joined the man's voice. No doubt the other villains that his classmates had managed to dispatch of were gaining their bearings. They would be outnumbered soon, and by the sounds of it, one of his classmates had been captured. They were in trouble. He needed to hurry, but at his current level he could only fly a little bit faster than he could run.

"So here's the new deal." The villain said. "Either this idiot's going to die, or you are. How about that."

He was almost there. Just a little bit further.

"You can either save his life, or your own."

He was near enough that he could feel the light bend, the way the mountains interrupted the flow of the photons, but he still couldn't make out their bodies. When would he be close enough to act? When? When?

"What's it gonna be, girlies?"

Now!

He threw up another bubble of light around his classmate being held hostage. Inexperienced as he was with his power, and in such a rush, he didn't have the precision to create the barrier solely around Kaminari's body. The electric villain howled in pain as his left hand was separated at the wrist. Ignoring him, (L/N) flew straight past and scooped up the two girls in another photonic sphere.

"(L/N)?" Yaoyorozu said in surprise.

"Are you three okay?" He asked as he flew them out of reach of the villains below.

"We're fine." Jiro answered. "But Kaminari is... look out!"

A painful blow caught him in the stomach, knocking the wind from his lungs. With his concentration interrupted the hard light constructs began to fade. The other three screamed as they fell, but inches before hitting the ground they were caught in another of (L/N)'s fields. Their savior came crashing to the ground only moments later, so concerned with their safety that he had ignored his own.

"(L/N)!" Yaoyorozu shouted as she ran over to him. Kneeling beside him, she placed a hand under his back to help him into a seated position. She watched in concern as he coughed, a trickle of blood trailing from his mouth as his left arm wrapped around his midsection.

"Not so fast, kids." A woman called from above. "You didn't really think you were getting away from us that easily, did you?"

They could fly. (L/N) counted five people, feeling the movement of their shadows as they circled the sky overhead. All around he could hear the other villains getting back to their feet; still dazed and swaying from Kaminari's last attack, but dangerous, nonetheless. Having lost the element of surprise and with the skies now under the villains' control, (L/N) had lost the two advantages he had been relying upon to save his other classmates.

Yaoyorozu still had a hand of his shoulder as Jiro stood in front of them, the blade clutched firmly in her tight grip, ready to fight. Kaminari was sitting on the ground, drooling, but still with the presence of mind to look afraid. (L/N) considered summoning another strike from above like he had in the Blizzard Zone, but with the skies barred to him he couldn't guarantee his classmates' safety. And besides, he didn't know if he had enough stamina left to conjure a strike that large. Maybe if he kept low enough to the ground, he could evade the enemies above, but the sheer number of opponents immediately dismissed this as an option. There was no other way. Nowhere to run. No way to wipe out everyone without hurting his peers. No other option. This time he would have to fight.