My Hero Academia: The Dragon's Quirk

The post-mission silence in the safe house was heavier than the silence before any mission. Their victory felt hollow, overshadowed by the horrifying truth they had brought back from the heart of darkness. The footage from Tatsumi's helmet—especially the image of Esdeath floating helplessly in the tube—played on a loop on the main screen, a silent reminder of the time bomb they were now dealing with.

The team was exhausted, but no one could rest. They gathered in the war room, each lost in their own thoughts, processing their new reality.

Leone was the first to break the silence, her usually cheerful voice now hoarse and serious. "Alright, I'll be the one to say the stupid thing," she said, pointing at Esdeath's image. "We walk away. We have the proof. We have the footage. We hand all of this over to the HPSC and let the top ten heroes handle it. This... this is out of our league. We're not playing with fire anymore; we're trying to tame an exploding sun."

"No," Akame replied instantly, her voice sharp. "If we expose this now, the Yozakura will know that we know about them. They'll disappear deeper into the shadows, and I'll lose any trail that might lead to Kurome. Besides," she added with cold logic, "if the PLF knows we know about their most valuable asset, they won't hesitate to accelerate their research or move her to a more secure location. We'll lose the only chance we have."

Tatsumi, who had been silent until now, finally spoke up. He wasn't looking at the screen. He was looking at Akame's tormented face. "We can't leave her there," he said softly, yet with unshakable conviction. "Letting the PLF and the Yozakura have that kind of power... is the same as handing the world over to them. But releasing her isn't an option either." He sighed. "There are no good choices."

"You're all right," said Hawks, who had been pacing like a caged lion. He stopped and looked at his team. "There are no good choices. When you're faced with a no-win scenario, you don't try to win. You change the game."

His eyes glinted with a dangerous light, the light of a master strategist seeing an insane move on an impossible chessboard. "We won't attack her. We won't leave her. We will force their hand. We will set the board in such a way that all our major pieces—the PLF, the Yozakura, Esdeath, and the Heroes—converge in one place."

At the PLF headquarters, a high-level emergency meeting was taking place via hologram. Re-Destro's face was grim, while his other lieutenants showed expressions of anger and disbelief.

Slither had just finished his report on the security breach in Aokigahara. "...we must assume the intruders have seen 'Asset E'," he concluded. "And given their ability to breach our security, we must also assume they are a team backed by one of the top-tier hero agencies."

Re-Destro tapped his fingers on his desk. His decision was swift and final. "The Aokigahara facility is no longer secure. Move 'Asset E' immediately. Move her to our most secure, most impenetrable location on the planet."

Skeptic, the information specialist, grinned from his hologram. "What a coincidence, Grand Commander," he said. "Thanks to the data we acquired some time ago, we know of a weakness in the 'Hercules' defense system on I-Island. If we can disable it from the inside, we can take over the entire island in a matter of hours. We can turn it into our private fortress and laboratory."

Re-Destro's eyes narrowed. "I-Island... Yes. That's perfect. Prepare the operation. We will take the island and move Asset E there."

Back at the safe house, Hawks laid out his insane plan, unaware that his enemies were walking right into the trap he was about to set.

"The PLF is panicking now," Hawks explained. "They will be desperate to move Esdeath to a safe place. We're going to 'help' them make a decision."

He began typing on his console, displaying a series of actions on the screen.

"First, Disinformation. I will use my network of double agents to leak false information to the PLF that the HPSC has discovered the Aokigahara location and is planning a massive raid within the next 48 hours. This will force them to move Esdeath as quickly as possible."

"Second, the Bait. We already gave them the bait some time ago: the 'leaked' I-Island security blueprints. In their panic, they will see I-Island as the only logical choice—the most secure fortress in the world that happens to have a 'backdoor' only they know about."

He looked at his team, letting them digest the scale of his plan. "Third, the Trap. We will let them take over I-Island. We will let them move Esdeath and her lab there. And once our time bomb is inside a box of our choosing, on a remote island far from any civilians..."

He paused, his smile now looking like a fox's grin. "...that's where we will confront it. We will create a perfect storm where three forces—the PLF, the heroes who will inevitably respond to the I-Island takeover, and Esdeath herself who might be unleashed in the chaos—collide with each other. And in the middle of that storm, we, this shadow alliance, will move to achieve our objective."

The room was silent. The plan was both brilliant and utterly insane. It was a gamble with the fate of the world as the stakes.

Leone was the first to laugh, a hearty laugh full of admiration. "You really are crazy, Winged Hero," she said. "But... I like your brand of crazy. I'm in."

Akame nodded, her cold eyes now burning with a new intensity. "Luring all our enemies into a single cage. High risk, with an even higher reward."

All eyes were now on Tatsumi. He thought of his friends at U.A., thought of the innocent civilians. Moving this battlefield to a remote island was the only way to protect them. He looked at Hawks, fully understanding the terrifying genius behind the plan.

"I'm in," he said, his voice steady.

With that, the decision was made. Their target was no longer a hidden laboratory. Their target was now the most famous scientific fortress in the world.

Hawks turned to the main screen, displaying a majestic image of I-Island.

"Alright, team," he said, his voice now filled with a new energy. "Time to light the fuse."