'I can't charge in blindly, not with how he's set up.' Sato crouched low behind the crumbling wall, mind racing. 'He's got the range advantage...'
"Stop hiding, you overgrown duck meat!" The villain's voice echoed, followed by a loud clap, a mock applause, as if his patience was thin.
'But even close up, he's lethal… that quirk makes every inch of him a deathtrap.' Sato exhaled slowly, forcing his thoughts to settle, trying to string them into something useful.
"Rikido Sato! You were in 1-A, right? with Shoto Todoroki." The voice cracked with rising mania. "When I find you, I'll caramelize your sugary ass!"
Sato winced. 'Damn it... He's losing it, but not enough. He still knows what he's doing.
plink
His head snapped up. A soft metallic drip echoed above.
Huh?
A rusted pipe, dripping.Sato's eyes lit up. 'That's it.'
His fingers brushed against his watch. The digital timer ticked down
15 minutes left.
'No time for doubts.'He clenched his fists, rising with quiet resolve.
'I'll have to move fast. Hold on, Mineta… I'm coming.'
With Mineta
Toga lunged, twisting, leaping to the ceiling. Her claws dug into the concrete as she propelled herself forward like a feral missile.
Mineta's vines shot up just in time, blocking her path mid-air.
'She's fast.' His eyes narrowed as more of his bead-like bulbs burst across the battlefield, releasing thick purple gas that coiled through the air.
Toga landed on her feet, eyes gleaming. She tilted her head and let out a giggle.
"You trying to knock me out~? While I'm sleeping~?" She flushed dramatically. "My, my~ how forward of you!"
"Drop the act." Mineta didn't flinch. His voice was flat, colder now. His vines ripped from the ground, walls, even the ceiling, snaking toward her like some sort of sentient roots.
One of the vines coiled around her leg.
'Tch. '
A sharp click of her tongue followed as her claw lashed out, slicing through the vine with practiced ease. She twisted free, but she wasn't fast enough to hide the flicker of frustration in her eyes.
That's the crack, Mineta thought. She's starting to slip.
He pushed harder, his vines surged like waves, forcing her to stay mobile, to waste motion.
Then his tone changed.
"What, you don't like it when I go all out?" he said mockingly, looking at her licking blood from a fresh cut on her palm. "You used to get excited when I played rough~"
Her words dripped with false sweetness, "What's with the change in tone, Mineta-kun~?"
Too sweet. Too performative.
She's slipping. That mask, it's starting to crack.
"You know, Mineta-kun~" Toga cooed, her tone souring with each syllable, "you've been such a wonderful experience for me."
Her eyes lost their playfulness."But our dance? It can't last forever."
Her smile twisted. The sweetness evaporated.
"So sad... I have to end it here."
With a sharp breath, her body shifted. Claws extended longer, sharper scales slithered over her skin, snakelike and pale. Her laughter was low and cold."Hehehhe... let the music bring our end."
Kota's voice broke through the tension.
"Mineta-senpai! It's no use, fighting her from a distance won't work. She's too fast!"
Mineta didn't turn his head."I know."
He took a step forward, the broken glow of tunnel lights casting harsh shadows across his face.
'It ends now.'
Suddenly, the vines around him pulled back from the environment, coiling tightly around his limbs, chest, and back. They twisted, hardened, like armor. Just like when he forged that blade before.
He reached behind him and pulled the sword free, its edge jagged.
Toga's grin widened.
"Ooooh~ Let's do it, Mineta~!"
They charged.
But something was off. Toga braced for a direct clash, when Mineta suddenly veered.
Not on the ground.
But on the wall.
"The hell....?!"
She barely got the words out before,
CRACK!A clean, brutal kick slammed into her jaw, spinning her mid-air and sending her crashing down into the murky sewage below.
Water splashed violently. Her body hit the sludge with a sickening thud.
Mineta didn't hesitate.
Not for a second.
He leapt down after her, his armored vines shifting mid-air, morphing into a colossal gauntlet, coating his entire arm.
Toga scrambled, dragging herself from the filthy water.
But the punch was already descending.
BAM!
Water erupted into the air as Mineta's strike landed, the force shaking the ground beneath them.
Toga gasped, her breath ragged, pupils dilated from the surge of pain, adrenaline, and fury rushing through her bloodstream.
Above, Kota clutched his side, blood soaking through his torn shirt.'What's... happening? How did Mineta-senpai do all that…?'His legs trembled. He tried to stand and fell back'I want to help… but I can't. I've lost too much blood...'
Mineta stood still, the water dripping off his armored vines, steam rising off his back from the heat of the moment.
He looked down at the disoriented girl scrambling in the sewage.
His voice was cold, measured."Let me tell you something, Himiko Toga wannabe, before this ends…"
He stepped forward, blade scraping against the concrete."I hate people like you. The ones who wear someone else's skin, their legacy, their madness. No originality. Just obsession and imitation."
Toga froze.
"Wannabe...?"
Her tone cracked.
"Wannabe..." she repeated, voice distant, as if the word echoed into some broken corridor of her mind."Waaanabe… Waaa… na—be..."
And then, her face twisted.
The playful smile shattered. What replaced it was something raw, bitter, demonic, a flash of pain behind the madness.
"You don't get it..." she hissed, shaking her head violently."You never will."
She stood upright, blood and filth soaking her frame, her expression empty now, like a marionette whose strings had been cut.
"Fine."
She exhaled slowly, her voice now devoid of sweetness. Only cold resolve remained.
"I reject you, Minoru Mineta."
She lifted her chin like a queen sentencing her jester.
"You're not worthy of my love anymore."
Mineta stared at her.
Not with anger. Not with triumph. "That's fine," he said quietly.
He lowered the sword. "I was never trying to earn it."
Toga blinked. That hesitation, that tiny crack in her mask, was still there, deep behind those bloodshot eyes.
"You liar," she whispered. "You liked it. You liked me."
Mineta's grip on the blade tightened, vines twitching slightly in reaction.
Then, she screamed.
The kind of scream that rips from your chest when the world turns out to be a lie.
Her body convulsed, transforming mid-lunge, scales expanding, claws like structures extending past her elbows, mouth unhinging unnaturally as the last traces of "Toga" bled into something monstrous.
"IF I CAN'T HAVE YOU, NO ONE CAN!!" She flew at him like a beast unchained.
Mineta didn't flinch.
And then
BOOM.
A punch from the side. Stone cracked.
Sato exploded into the scene from a side corridor, fist with charged muscle enhancement, slamming into Toga mid-flight and sending her crashing into the tunnel wall.
"Got you, Villain," he shouted.
Mineta's eyes widened."Sato?!"
"I told you," Sato panted, dust rising from his shoulders. "I'm not letting anyone die today."