Silence Destroyed (MHA)

Chapter 37A

This is the FIRST PART of my three-part update dump, start here! 

The cement room had been depressingly silent ever since Naoko forced Shoto to leave. He hadn't been excited, but he was gone and Naoko could only pray that he got far enough away from the action. No one needed both of them going down tonight, that was for sure.

She could feel something big coming, in more ways than one. From the scant information that Shoto had given her, she was able to guess that the Potato... All for One... was the head of this operation. 

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he was the absentee parent of the group who was there enough to be known but not nearly often enough to give the child the attention he needed. Crusty McFuck was obviously the neglected child who was doing anything he could think of just to get his parent's recognition.

It was sad when she thought about it.

She also had a feeling that Crusty over at the bar would probably kill her for even suggesting something like that. It'd be a fun way to go, but Naoko didn't have that option at the moment.

No. All she had right now was four cement walls and a growing sense of dread.

What an interesting day this was shaping up to be.

The presences she had felt earlier were close, which filled Naoko with the slightest amount of dread. What if they didn't know she was there and decided to just bomb the place? She had, after all, been at that bar for a while, so maybe they expected her to be there and were going to go ham on this place.

No. Thinking about that now would only bring unneeded stress. There was really nothing she could do on that front. 

If Naoko was going to do anything, then she was going to figure out how to wreck the man who brought her here, the one who allowed all this shit to happen. Not only was the man a potato, but he was also a tank, one with the best defenses Naoko had ever run across.

His quirk had felt like a wall more than anything else, it had been a solid mass of controlled power, which made it feel impossible to breach.

Would she be able to do any damage to the man if she went all out and did her damnedest to attack the shell? Probably not. Especially not in the condition she was in. An all-out attack would probably kill her at this point.

She had yet to get up from her slumped position against the wall, which really didn't bode well for her trying to fight the most powerful person she had ever come across. Then again...

You didn't necessarily have to be stronger than someone to beat them. Shinso was a great example of that, so was Midoriya.

If you could out-think them, you could win.

The Potato was a tank, true enough, but if Naoko waited for the right moment, then she could get under his skin while he was distracted. He said he took the cat girl's quirk, and he definitely sounded like he wanted to take her quirk, so maybe him doing that would provide an opportunity.

Hm... Now that she was thinking about it... Maybe thinking just a little bit like Bakugou could be helpful.

Before she could even begin to come up with a more solid plan, the feeling of the Potato returned, stronger than ever and heavy footsteps reverberated around her.

Something was happening, and Naoko couldn't tell for the life of her what it was, but she just knew that two things were approaching at once, and the potato would absolutely get here first. The locks on the door opened, and Naoko squeezed her eyes shut.

Forget her talking about bringing this guy down. Now that she was faced with the reality of the situation, she was terrified. She put up this brave façade and kept going, pretending that she was all that and a bag of chips, but the reality was that Naoko was nothing more than a scared little girl.