Chapter 35: Chapter XXXV: Humarise Falls
Back in the Humarise base where it was night time, the squad used a key card they snagged off a member and entered Alan Kay's room. He turned to them and his gloomy expression was replaced with a surprised one, "Heroes?!"
Kabuto answered, "Yes, we're here to rescue you. We received that message you sent out."
Alan smiled and dropped his pencil sighing deeply in relief, "Thank you so much. I didn't hear the alarm go off, did none of the cameras catch you?"
Minato answered, "No, we have our ways. We can get you out, but first, can you tell us where the locations of the camera room, the bombs, and where Flect Turn is?"
Alan stuttered, "Y-yes of course. I've never been told where the camera room is, but the bombs are in the far northeast of the facility. And Flect Turn is usually in the center chamber in the middle of the base."
"Thank you, I suppose setting off security doesn't matter much at this point, but it would still be good to know."
There was a loud knock on the door, "Hey Alan! Let me in, I forgot my keyboard somewhere."
Tokoyami watched to see how the hero's would react and followed after as they hid behind desks. Alan looked at them and Tsunade gave a thumbs up. He cleared his throat, opening the door. "Hello. What did you need?"
"What I needed was"— Minato drew a kunai to his throat, pressing the metal against his skin. He gasped, and the rest of the heroes showed themselves; they all glared, and Tokoyami imitated their glares.
His eyes were as wide as dinner plates, "Heroes!?"
Minato demanded, "Tell us the location of the security room, now."
"Heh, a hero wouldn't kill a defenseless person."
Minato slowly put more and more pressure on the blade as it drew blood from his neck, making him yelp, "Come on, while you still have a throat to speak with." Minato spoke faster.
"Ah! OK, OK, please stop! The security room is to the left of this door. Take the first left and go straight down!"
Tokoyami thought, 'Is he being serious? Are heroes really expected to be this ruthless in certain circumstances?'
Minato released the kunai and smiled, "You folded fast, thanks. You deserve some rest," Minato hit him in the back of the head, making him fall face flat.
Tsunade stated, "I'll make my way to the bombs."
Minato replied, "Good, I'll be going straight to Flect Turn."
Kabuto said, "Me, Hawks, and Tokoyami can run straight to security then get Alan out of here."
Minato asked, "Does everyone still have the paper I gave to you guys?"
They all pulled a piece of paper out of their pockets with Minato's seal on it. "Good, just remember. In case anything goes wrong I'll teleport to you guys. Let's go."
Hawks would occasionally glance at Kabuto during the whole conversation, 'He hasn't set off any red or yellow flags...' "Tokoyami, can you stick close to Alan?"
Tokoyami nodded and they all ran in separate directions. As Tokoyami, Alan, Hawks, and Kabuto were near the security room, an alarm went off, and lasers shot at them through the holes in the walls, but it didn't matter since the door was right in front of them. Hawks shouted, "Tokoyami!"
"Dark Shadow!" Dark Shadow tore through the metal door to the security room and they rushed in. The guards sitting in front of a wall covered in screens yelped and reached for their guns, but Hawks feathers dispatched them before they could even aim. Kabuto ran over to the computer and went through it.
Hawks asked, "How long will it take?"
"Only a couple minutes; this is pretty amateur."
In the meantime, some quirkless people with spears tried to come into the room, but Tokoyami easily fended them off with Dark Shadow. Hawks occasionally looked over his shoulder at Kabuto until he pressed a button on his watch. "We're ready."
Alan shouted, "Watch out!"
Hawks spotted small iron balls coming at them at the speed of an arrow. Quickly, he used his feathers to get Alan and Tokoyami away from the door as the iron balls expanded and destroyed the doorway along with collapsing the wall. The lights broke leaving them in darkness.
Tokoyami got his bearings and stood up with Alan, "Should we engage?"
"No, this is a bad spot to fight when their attacks destroy the walls. Let's try to fall back to the jet."
Kabuto replied, "Agreed."
Sidero's muffled voice could be heard past the iron ball, "Are they dead already?"
Tokoyami used the darkness to his advantage and braced Dark Shadow before letting it loose and pushing back on the iron ball, sending it flying down the hall into all the Humarise members.
The three of them didn't let the opportunity pass and dashed back to the vent entrance and traversed it. Tokoyami destroyed the spinning fan with one hand of dark shadow while grabbing Alan with the other. They jumped back outside to be greeted by the hard rainfall hitting the stoney terrain below them.
Tokoyami asked, "Which way is the jet?"
Kabuto pointed east, "It's over the rocky hills over"—
Metal bellow swords almost tore through Kabuto, but Hawks yanked him out of the way with a feather.
They all jolted their heads towards a pair of purple-haired twins with bellow swords for arms and sadistic smiles. Kabuto adjusted his glasses, "The Serpenter twins. Thank you, Hawks."
Sidero and Beros jumped out of the vent they came from and glared at them.
Hawks replied, "Don't mention it, get ready for a fight."
Back inside the facility, Tsunade rushed to the bombs and found the door. Without slowing down, she punched the door, sending it into the wall of the room. She looked around and saw dozens of empty black and red cubes, "This must be where the bombs are... although they seem hollow." She clenched her fist, 'I can just destroy these so they can't be used to contain bombs then.'
She took another step, but quickly turned and held up her arms in a guard as a huge white arm sent her flying into a container, easily destroying it. She looked up and saw the growling Leviathan. She smiled and cracked her neck, "You pack quite a punch, don't you?"
Leviathan growled and drooled on the ground before running at Tsunade and trying to hit her again. She weaved and used his arm to throw him into another container, covering the room in dust. 'Is this thing on trigger? I'm pretty sure he's supposed to be human.'
Red tendril spikes shot out of the dust and she reacted by raising her guard. She grunted as the tendrils stabbed her forearm before pulling them out and backing up. She let her arm hang limp as it healed slowly, "Either way, I'll be careful with this beast."
In the center of the base, Minato made his way into the inner chamber and looked around. The room was like the inside of a Cathedral if you stripped all the art and left it lined with books everywhere. Minus the chimera on the ceiling. On the other side of the room, there was a staircase leading somewhere. Minato strolled toward it, but an opening was made in a column as a turret shot a laser at him. He easily sidestepped it.
"What are you doing here? This is the place that will secure human salvation. Those heavily afflicted with a curse like you aren't welcome."
The blue-skinned leader, Flect Turn, emerged and looked down on him from atop the balcony. Minato wasted no time and threw a kunai right at his throat, teleporting to it and readying another kunai to stab through his head, but he was sent flying by an invisible force. He used the momentum of the force to do a backwards cartwheel gently on his feet, sliding on the ground.
Flect Turn's eyes widened, but he regained composure, "A hero, here to kill me?"
Minato prepared over a dozen kunai and threw them into different corners of the room as metal shutters were raised, covering the books. "You can always surrender, but I don't think you want to do that. Sorry, but I'm not gonna hold back on someone preparing to kill the majority of the world's population."
Flect Turn took off the large white coat and revealed the floating disk around him, "So be it. I've known for a long time that the heavily afflicted can rarely understand the truth."
Minato braced himself, 'A quirk that reflects everything? Those things flying around him probably just help him direct a reflection, gotta find some kind of opening or just overwhelm it.'
In the middle of thinking, every column revealed a turret and the lasers all started shooting him at once.
Back outside, Hawks, Kabuto, and Tokoyami were on the back foot of a 3v4 trying to protect Alan.
They maintained pressure with constant attacks of four bellow swords mixed with iron balls getting shot like arrows.
Kabuto revealed his quirk as he straightened his hand, blue energy stretching out from it like a scalpel as he cut the ball in half. Hawks weaved through the attacks without too much trouble, but couldn't close the distance. He shot feathers at Beros and messed with her aim, making her shoot the iron balls toward the Serpenters, causing them to fall.
Dark Shadow grabbed both halves of the previously cut iron ball and threw them at Sidero, he was slow to react and got sent flying unconscious.
Hawks smiled, "Great job, Tokoyami!" Hawks formed his feathers into a sword and weaved through the bellow swords gracefully and closed the distance, slicing across the chests of the twins.
Their robes fell off, and they collapsed, gasping as blood poured out of their chests.
Beros grunted, "Damn it!" She aimed for Alan and shot multiple arrows that Tokyami blocked with Dark Shadow.
Kabuto dashed at Beros, "Tokoyami, take Alan to the jet!"
Tokoyami glanced at Hawks, who nodded and rushed Alan away from the battlefield. Beros tried to shoot arrows at his back, but Kabuto sliced through them mid-flight and closed the distance. She reached for another arrow, but there were none left and Kabuto went for a haymaker, taking her out.
Hawks sighed, "Alright, now to"— twice as many bellow swords cut through the air and clipped his wings partially. Both he and Kabuto turned to the newly revitalized Serpenter twins, who laughed maniacally as they turned into a beast like state with the swords coming out of their shoulder blades.
Hawks formed another feather sword, "Trigger." Both he and Kabuto ran away from each other, and the Serpenter twins took one each. Kabuto gritted his teeth as he struggled to try and weave out of the way of the swords.
He thought, 'There's no way I could close the distance like this, just gotta dodge for now.' He increased the power and length of the blade in his hand and tried to deflect the swords away with mild success.
Hawks had a better time and weaved through the attacks with mild difficulty. He charged straight for the Serpenter and two-handed the feather sword as he knocked away the blades and closed the distance, slicing through his chest multiple times. The Serpenter just kept laughing and tried to go high into the air, but Hawks pursued him and slammed him back into the ground with the feather blade going through his chest. "Keep still if you don't wanna bleed out, I avoided anything vital."
Without waiting for a response Hawks went to help Kabuto with the remaining Serpenter.
As the fight went on, Tsunade and Leviathan made a mess of the base. He went for a hook and she sidestepped into him, delivering an uppercut to his jaw. He went high in the air, and Tsunade grabbed his leg, pulling him back down into a hard hook of her own that sent him through multiple bomb containers; although, as he went flying, he wrapped tendrils around her and pulled her with him through more containers.
He wrapped the tendrils around her tightly, binding her arms and throwing her around more before throwing her through a wall outdoors off a cliff. However, he didn't release the tendrils and jumped after her. Tsunade glared as some blood came out her mouth, 'This could end badly, time to get serious.' She flared up her vril and the marking on her forehead expanded into a pattern across her whole body.
She flexed the tendrils loose and grabbed them, pulling him into a hard hit to the dome as they fell through the sky. She grabbed him by the tendrils and kept punching him over and over, positioning herself in the air on top of him. He tried to hit back, but she no sold it and hit him one last time slamming him down with both hands as his body crashed into the rocks below with her on top of him. She pulled her fist back to hit him again, but he wasn't moving and had shallow breaths.
She allowed the marks to fade and stood up, staring through the rain and up at the hole she came from. 'Now how am I supposed to get back up there?'
Back inside the base, Minato dodged the lasers with ease. Flect Turn tried to have the lasers shoot him to redirect them all at Minato, but Minato took this as an opportunity to teleport behind him and destroy some of the floating reflectors. Flec Turn redirected the force at Minato, but only hit air as Minato teleported away before it could touch him. Flect Turn grunted and went to have more lasers shot at him, but there were none left. He glared at Minato who met his glare with his own.
Minato stated, "You might as well give up, you'll never be able to land a hit on me."
"You may be fast, but your attacks are too weak to do anything meaningful, not that you could ever get past my ability in the first place."
"... I wonder," Minato held a hand, and a spinning blue ball of energy slowly formed in it.
Flect Turn blinked, "You're so diseased that you have two afflictions?"
Minato chuckled, "Sort of. Do you know how sometimes one twin absorbs the other in the womb? You could say I got what would be his quirk."
Flect Turn tilted his chin up, "So that's what your twin's quirk would have been? A pitiful blue ball won't allow you to stop me from bringing salvation to this world."
"Nah, flying Raijin was my twin's quirk. This blue ball is my own quirk, and it's called Rasengan," Minato increased its size and teleported right in front of Flect Turn, hitting him with it. The force of the reflection hit Minato, but as soon as he felt it, he teleported behind Flect Turn, still having the Rasengan, and landed it on his back, sending him flying in pain.
"AHHHH! How?!"
Minato smiled, "Seems like you can't send a big reflection blast in the opposite direction."
Flect Turn gritted his teeth, "This isn't over yet!"
"Yes, it is."
Minato made another Rasengan and teleported with the Rasengan instantly on Flect Turn's back; the force was reflected, but not before Flect Turn felt the pain and force of the attack making his mouth bleed.
Minato teleported out of the blast again.
"H-how could I be feeling the force of the blast after reflecting it?! My ability is supposed to be automatic!"
Minato tapped his head, "Your quirk may be faster than you, but I'm even faster than that."
"This is nonsense! I will not allow you to destroy everything I've worked towards!"
Flect Turn got in a fighting stance and Minato used the markings he put on Flect Turn to assault him constantly with attacks to the point his blue skin turned white from being overloaded. Flect Turn breathed heavily and tried to land a sloppy punch on Minato, but he hit him with a spinning back kick, knocking him out. Minato wiped the dirt off his jacket and started making calls for the Otheon government to arrest the villains. "Yeah, it's safe to come now. They're all secure."
After the call finished, dozens of quirkless members of Humarise ran into the room and gasped, seeing their leader knocked out. Minato flipped his kunai, "Time to secure the rest of them."
Back outside, Tokoyami got Alan to the jet and ran out. The rain was letting up and Tokoyami could see clearer. 'They're so far away. Hawks might need me!' He envisioned scenarios in his head when he thought about Hawks being left alone with Kabuto and the villains. 'Could Kabuto turn on him and join the villains? Could he just be waiting for the right moment to stab him in the back? I gotta get over there!'
He remembered things Hawks told him, "I'll be counting on you to watch my back, Tokoyami."
"If your quirk can fly, why can't you?"
Something clicked in his head and he stopped running. He summoned Dark Shadow and stared at him. "Dark Shadow... can you pick me up?"
Over the rocky hills, Hawks beat the villains and breathed heavily as he recovered. Kabuto stared down at him differently than before, "Are you ok, Hawks?"
"Yeah... just gotta catch my breath," 'Maybe I'm being more suspicious than I should be... either way Tokoyami will be here in a minute.'
"... I'll see if I can bring the jet back this way." Kabuto walked in the direction of the jet, then he paused and smiled as he turned back to Hawks who's back was facing him. He glanced back over the hills. 'He probably won't come back for a while.'
He flowed energy through his hand and raised it to strike down Hawks, going straight for his neck, but in a split second before making contact, Tokoyami body slammed into him and used Dark Shadow to lift him and slam him again, face first in the rocks. Knocking him out instantly.
Hawks jolted at the two of them, and Tokoyami said, "Hawks, thanks for teaching me how to fly; I saw him aiming at your neck so... I hope I didn't go too hard."
Hawks chuckled and stood up pulling Tokoyami into a noogie, "Haha, thanks, Tokoyami. You did everything you were supposed to do." He ambled over to Kabuto. "He was starting to make me drop my guard there for a second, you really saved me."
Tokoyami smiled and the rain stopped. "Hey! What's going on out here?"
They turned and saw Tsunade followed by Minato jogging over to them. Hawks answered, "Kabuto here tried to kill me when I wasn't looking, but Tokoyami took care of him."
Minato said, "Really? Well then, great work, Tokoyami." Tsunade added, "Yeah, you're a strong kid. Let's get back to the jet. Did you call the authorities, Minato?"
"Yeah, they should be here any minute now."
On cue, multiple Armored vehicles sped onto the scene. After explaining the situation, the government apprehended all the Humarise members and collected all the evidence for their plan, opting to keep it from the public. Kabuto was sent with them for temporary imprisonment at Hawks's request and the jet was on its way to Japan. Tokoyami sat next to Hawks and was ready to doze off with bags under his eyes.
Although without any delay, Hawks called out to Minato, "Hey, I'd like for you to fulfill that favor I mentioned last week."
Minato raised a brow, "This soon? You don't wanna rest first?"
Hawks shook his head, "Kabuto mentioned vague something about Sasuke being needed to heal Danzo. I don't know what that means, but I gotta intervene before it can happen."
Minato stood up and smiled, "Alright then." He placed his hands on the shoulders of Hawks and Tokoyami. Tsunade waved, "Bye, hope we can meet again." She pointed at Tokoyami, "Don't forget to try and push for UA inviting some foreign students eventually!"
Tokoyami yawned and shook his head hard. "Y-yes of course."
Hawks side-eyed him, "For this next part, you can go home if you want. I can see your exhaustion."
"No, I'll be fine."
Hawks smirked, and in an instant, the two of them were right next to Edgeshot and Sasuke. They were all at the edge of the agency in the vacated gift shop next to the agency's vast garden of Japanese plants.
Edgeshot didn't look surprised and Hawks met eyes with Sasuke. Edgeshot stated, "Good timing. Sasuke was asking about you earlier, Hawks."
"That works perfectly." Minato waved and teleported away. Hawks smiled and offered a hand to Sasuke. "It's good to finally meet you, Sasuke. We haven't met yet, but I have a lot to talk to you about. Revolving around Crow and that old guy you've been meeting named Danzo."