Around her, the air shimmered faintly as her Quirks strained to maintain three separate clones, each splitting her strength like shards of gss.

  One clone held a glowing barrier around Aizawa’s crumpled body, desperately weaving healing threads across his battered frame. But even from this distance, Hikari could see it wasn't enough. His right arm dangled uselessly, shattered beyond what simple mending could fix.

  Across the ruined pza, Bakugo and Kirishima crouched behind a fallen pilr.

  "Tch. Most of ‘em ain’t made for real combat," Bakugo muttered, jerking his thumb toward where the other students were still regrouping.

  "We can’t just leave them," Kirishima said, grit in his voice.

  "I know that, dumbass. But first..." Bakugo's red eyes burned with a different kind of fire. "I gotta find her. If I know Hikari, she's already doin' something stupid and reckless."

  Kirishima grinned, cpping him on the shoulder. "Then let's go find her."

  Meanwhile, back at the epicenter of the chaos, a rift of purple-bck mist swirled in the air.

  Kurogiri’s calm, disembodied voice cut through the tension.

  "Tomura Shigaraki," he said, "reinforcements will arrive soon. Pro Heroes. We are running out of time."

  At the sound of that, Shigaraki twitched violently, scratching furiously at his neck with all five fingers until raw, angry marks bloomed across his skin.

  Hikari’s sharp eyes caught the movement. Her gut twisted.

  Something's wrong. He's unraveling.

  And then—everything snapped into motion.

  Nomu lunged forward, muscles bulging with unnatural power, but stopped when Shigaraki lifted a single hand.

  "No," he rasped, his voice like sandpaper. "This one’s mine."

  In the blur of seconds that followed, Hikari saw him dart toward Midoriya, Asui, and Mineta—hands outstretched, Decay glowing at his fingertips.

  Without thinking, without hesitating, she threw herself into the path.

  Crack!

  Pain nced through her as Shigaraki’s fingertips brushed her right shoulder. Her body reacted instantly as her shoulder bde began to crumble, disintegrating into ash where he touched her. The agony was immediate, sharp, and cold.

  Not enough to stop me, she thought fiercely. She twisted, pnting herself between him and her friends, forcing him back with a shield of raw kinetic energy that fred golden around her.

  "Don't you dare touch them," she hissed, her voice trembling with fury. "You want me to go with you, right?"

  Shigaraki’s head cocked slightly, his red eyes gleaming behind the cracked, crumbling hands that covered his face like a broken mask.

  "Oh, did you finally come to your senses and want to come back with us?" he crooned mockingly.

  Hikari took a staggering step forward, blood dripping from her ruined shoulder, her voice lowering into a whisper only he could hear:

  "Only if I can meet All For One and my mother again."

  For a breath, the entire battlefield seemed to still.

  Kurogiri stiffened, his yellow eyes blinking once inside the mist.

  Shigaraki’s smirk didn’t fade—but the way he scratched his neck, violently and unconsciously, betrayed the storm brewing inside him.

  He turned to Kurogiri with a twisted smile.

  "She’s right," he rasped. "We’ll leave… but she’s coming with us."

  Kurogiri hesitated. "Tomura, are you sure?"

  "She belongs to us," Shigaraki said simply. "She just forgot."

  Turning back to her, Shigaraki reached out a hand, expectant.