Colors in the Dark

[45] Go!

A/N: Sorry this one's a bit shorter, my kits. And during such a heartbreaking moment, too... I can only pray everyone makes it out safely, but we're already starting to see that hope be crushed. At least Guardian's heading into the fray, hopefully to make everything a little less desolate and hopeless.

Ayami ran toward the building, cape billowing behind her, letting her legs carry her at a dizzying pace forward, knowing time was of the essence. She had seen the fear, the helplessness, the terror behind the girl's red eyes, as well as the raging determination that Mirio had.

She had failed them all once by not being there, so she vowed never to make the same mistake again.

Once inside, Ayami turned corners, and went past a few policemen, but they luckily only pointed her in the right direction- probably couldn't recognize her with the mask on.

At a junction, she saw Bubble Girl, but Ayami didn't stop to say a word, just nodded as she continued to run and went through the opening. It was like a maze of secretly-constructed labs in the building, which was connected to another labyrinth of tunnels underground.

The redhead charged through, her visions guiding her through the right path as Brizo's precognitive warnings grew stronger and stronger. She felt almost like a kid again, the white-washed walls and eerie, violent tremors reminding her so much of the solitary confinement room she used to be locked in time and time again.

Ayami shook her head as she willed those thoughts away. Focus! We're here to save Eri, the poor little thing. Every second we waste, every second we aren't on our A game, is a second that could cost lives.

Soon enough, she found the hallway to have been almost misshapen, completely twisted and then frozen in place. Parts of the floor were missing, leading to rooms below her.

Instead, Ayami chose to leap over them, glad all her agility training over the years had her in good shape. She didn't want to exhaust her quirk before she even got to the battle. When she finally came across a solid wall, however, there was nothing she could do but will Hecate into being and smash through them, not having the time to waste on navigating the rest of this labyrinth.

She went through at least five walls, intersecting with different hallways and rooms she didn't spare second glances, until the sounds of chaos were terribly close. Ayami stopped, panting heavily, her hair a faded shade of rose gold. Her movements were more sluggish than usual as she neared.

"I think there's some type of movement-altering quirk," she mused. "That can't be good."

"Are you ready, even in spite of that?" Hecate asked.

"Not at all," the young heroine replied before swinging her reinforced tentacle and breaking into the room. "But there's nothing for me to do except fight. Fight to save that poor girl from the jaws of evil."

Inside, a number of spikes sticking up from the ground fell back into the floor, and a man in a plague doctor mask stood up- his hand had been previously on the ground, likely using his quirk to control the landscape- and turned toward her. His yellow eyes bore directly into hers, which were (at the moment) the same color.

Across from him, Mirio stood holding Eri, the former wide-eyed at her arrival- as if to silently question why, why was she here- and the latter with her eyes shut. She shot the third-year a glance that she hope conveyed Run! and tried not to cower.

"Overhaul," she stated, as if the name was nothing more than that, a name, and not of a man that ran a terrible yakuza group and subjected hundreds of people to drugs and pain and death. As if he, a man with a devastating quirk, posed no threat to the world she knew.