The villains' battle cries filled the stuffy air as they charged us. They were like a pack of wolves that had cornered two sheep. Unfortunately for them, one of those sheep was actually a dragon in disguise. I gave them no time to coordinate their attack. I surged forward, becoming the spearhead of our two-person counter-assault. The first villain I faced was the one with drill arms. He swung his spinning rock drills at my head. I didn't dodge. I let Incursio's instincts take over. The armor on my forearm hardened a moment before impact, and I parried the attack with a piercing shriek of colliding metal. Sparks illuminated the villain's shocked face. Before he could retract his arm, I gripped the drill with my clawed gauntlet, stopping its rotation with raw strength, then slammed my free fist into his chest. His ribs cracked with a sickening crunch, and he was thrown backward, unconscious.
The fight devolved into a brutal chaos. I moved among them, every motion fueled by a blend of my cold analysis and the armor's savage fury. I was learning fast. Incursio was more than just a suit of armor; it was a living weapon. When I punched the rock-skinned villain, I could feel the armor on my knuckles grow denser and heavier a split second before impact to maximize the damage. When I dodged an attack from the side, the plates on my flank felt like they protruded slightly, ready to deflect an unexpected blow. This wasn't conscious control. It felt like dancing with a far more experienced partner, one who anticipated every step and reacted as needed. Pain was the music for our dance, a constant throb reminding me of the price of this power.
Behind me, Momo had overcome her initial shock and transformed into an incredibly efficient support machine. I heard the distinct sound of her Creation Quirk, followed by the clatter of metal hitting the ground. "Tatsumi-san, behind you!" she yelled. I leaped to the side just as a villain with a Quirk that let him tunnel through the ground tried to ambush me from below. As he emerged, he landed right on a pile of caltrops—sharp metal spike traps—that Momo had created. He howled in pain as the spikes pierced his boots. Momo didn't stop there. She had created a long, sturdy metal bo staff for herself, using it with surprising skill to keep her distance from a few villains who tried to get past me.
The villains, initially confident, were now beginning to hesitate. They realized we were not easy prey. The stone golem who appeared to be their leader growled in frustration. "Don't just stand there, you idiots! Surround them! Crush the boy first!"
They tried to follow his orders. Two villains attempted to flank me, while the golem himself prepared for a direct assault. They were trying to split my focus, to overwhelm me. But they weren't just fighting me. They were fighting us.
"Yaoyorozu!" I yelled, without taking my eyes off the approaching golem. "I need something to blind them! A flashbang!"
"In progress!" she replied, her voice steady and focused.
I charged the golem, not to attack, but to tie him up in combat. He swung his massive stone fists, which I narrowly avoided. Each of his missed blows struck the ground with enough force to make it tremble. While I was busy dancing with this giant, I saw out of the corner of my eye two other villains closing in on Momo. But she was ready. She tossed two small metal spheres at them. The spheres erupted with a blinding flash of light and a loud bang. Improvised flashbangs. The two villains screamed, clutching at their temporarily blinded eyes. It was the opening Momo needed. She quickly created a heavy metal net from her back and threw it over them, effectively trapping them.
Seeing his comrades neutralized so easily made the golem roar with fury. He ignored me for a second and raised both hands above his head, slamming them into the ground with full force. "Die, you brat!" he yelled. The ground beneath us cracked and began to slide, a wave of rock and earth hurtling toward Momo.
There was no time to think. "Yaoyorozu, take cover!" I shouted as I placed myself between her and the rockslide. I planted my feet, crossed my armored forearms in front of my face, and braced for the full weight of the assault. The rocks hit my back like sledgehammers. Sharp pain exploded through my body as several of the armor plates on my back cracked under the pressure. I roared, a mix of pain and defiance, pushing back with all my strength. I managed to hold back the main slide, but I staggered forward, my knee nearly hitting the ground. My vision started to blur at the edges. This armor... it was draining me faster than I thought.
Momo watched in horror as I took the blow meant for her. The fear that had briefly resurfaced in her was quickly replaced by something else—a cold, focused anger. She saw Tatsumi stagger, the armor on his back fractured. She saw the remaining villains, including the golem, beginning to regroup for a final push. She knew a defensive, reactive strategy wouldn't be enough anymore. It was time to end this. With a burning resolve in her eyes, she focused all her concentration. This would cost her a significant amount of her lipid reserves, a huge gamble. But her partner had put his life on the line for her. She would not waste that sacrifice. From her arms, metal began to form, not into a shield or a staff, but into something much larger and more complex. A long cylinder with a trigger and a barrel. A cannon.
I felt my strength beginning to fade. The pain from the cracks in my armor was spreading like fire. The remaining villains—the golem, the rock-clawed one, and another who could shoot stone shards from his hands—saw my weakness and began to close in, smirking. "Out of gas, hero boy?" the golem sneered.
I let out a small, raspy laugh from behind my helmet. "Not yet," I growled. Then I saw it. Behind the villains, Momo had finished assembling her weapon. A small, deadly-looking bazooka-like cannon, propped on her shoulder. Our eyes met for a split second, and a wordless understanding passed between us. She needed time. She needed an opening.
I gathered the last dregs of my strength. Ignoring every danger signal from my body, I dropped all pretense of defense. With a roar that sounded more like a dragon's than a man's, I charged straight at the final three villains. I became an armor-clad missile. I didn't try to dodge. I used my body as a battering ram, slamming my shoulder into the clawed one and sending him flying. I took a volley of stone shards to the chest, ignoring the pain as they pelted my already cracked armor. I had one goal: keep them busy, keep their eyes on me, and give her the time she needed.
"NOW!" I screamed.
"TAKE THIS!" Momo roared. She pulled the trigger. The cannon fired with a deafening boom, launching a large projectile. It wasn't an explosive shell. It was a giant net made of the same cable alloy I had used in training, but far larger and thicker, weighted at the ends. The net sailed over my head and enveloped all three villains in one motion. They were tangled, dragged down by its weight and strength, unable to move.
The fight was over.
The sudden silence felt strange. The adrenaline that had been keeping me going vanished in an instant, and the full weight of pain and exhaustion hit me like a freight train. I staggered and fell to my knees, gasping for breath. The Incursio armor began to retract, the agonizing process starting all over again. I gritted my teeth, holding back a groan as the black plates receded back beneath my skin.
"Tatsumi-san!" Momo dropped the now-useless cannon and ran to my side. Her usually composed face was now filled with genuine panic and concern as she saw me shaking uncontrollably. "You're hurt! Your Quirk... it hurts you! What should I do?" She reached out a hand but hesitated, unsure how to help.
I looked up, my vision blurry. Through the haze of pain, I could see her beautiful eyes filled with fear—fear for me. I managed a weak smile. "We... we did it... partner," I whispered, before the darkness finally claimed me and I collapsed unconscious on the rocky ground of the Landslide Zone.
Momo knelt beside Tatsumi's unconscious form, her hands trembling. She looked at the scene around her: a dozen defeated villains, tangled in her nets or lying unconscious. She looked at the cannon she had just created, a weapon of surprising destructive force. And she looked at her partner, who had used his own body as a shield for her, now lying helpless because of the same power that had saved them. Fear, awe, and a fierce, protective feeling churned within her. This wasn't a drill anymore. This was real. And in this baptism by fire, something fundamental inside her had shifted. She was no longer just a sheltered, genius student. She was a fighter. A survivor. And she swore to herself, she would never let her partner get hurt like this again.