My Hero Academia: The Dragon's Quirk

Falling.

That was the only sensation that existed. The deafening roar of the wind was the only sound inside Tatsumi's now silent and dead helmet. All the warning lights had gone out, all life support systems had shut down. The Incursio armor, which usually felt like a powerful second skin, was now nothing more than a metal coffin weighing hundreds of kilograms, dragging him and Akame towards their watery grave.

He could see nothing but a swirl of night sky and the dark, churning surface of the sea getting closer at a terrifying speed. Time seemed to slow down. In that absolute silence, his mind raced. He remembered his promise to Momo. He remembered the trusting gazes of Uraraka and his friends. He remembered the cold determination in Akame's eyes as they began this mission. And he felt like a failure. After all the training, all the battles, he was failing before he even reached the real battlefield.

With the last remnants of his consciousness, he performed one final act. He twisted his body in mid-air, positioning his thickly armored back to hit the water first, while hugging Akame tightly to his chest. If they were to be shattered, let his armor be her final shield.

Akame, clinging tightly, felt the armor around her grow cold and dead. She didn't panic. Fear was a luxury she never had. Her razor-sharp mind immediately analyzed the situation: critical altitude, terminal velocity, no way to slow down. She could only tighten her grip, her muscles tensing, preparing her body for the inevitable impact. Her hand never left the hilt of Murasame.

At the temporary command post, the tension was so thick it could be cut with a knife. "They're going down! I've lost their energy signal!" Hawks shouted, his eyes glued to the monitor showing Tatsumi's altitude dropping drastically towards zero. "They're not going to make it to the reef!"

Leone didn't wait for an order. She had seen the same data, and her predator's instinct took over. "Give me their last known coordinates!" she roared as she ran out of the command tent towards a black high-speed inflatable boat they had prepared.

"Leone, wait! That area is now an active combat zone! There are PLF and Navy patrols everywhere!" Hawks shouted through the communicator.

"THEY CAN TRY ME!" Leone roared back, her voice changing, becoming deeper and hoarser. As she jumped into the boat and started its engine, her body began to transform. Her muscles swelled with explosive power, tearing some of her outer clothing. Her long blonde hair grew into a wild, magnificent mane. Her ears became more pointed, and her canines elongated. Her fingers lengthened into deadly claws. Her eyes now glowed in the darkness with the vertical pupils of a great cat. This was her Quirk, Lionel, in its full manifestation. She was the lioness going to protect her wounded pride.

The boat shot through the waves at an insane speed, guided by the coordinates Hawks was yelling, towards the point where her two comrades had just vanished into the sea.

The impact was not what Tatsumi had imagined. It wasn't an explosion, but an implosion. The entire world seemed to crush into a single point of blinding pain and crushing water pressure. Total darkness enveloped him as the weight of his dead armor pulled him down, into the cold embrace of the ocean. His consciousness began to fade.

Suddenly, as they sank deeper, a strange event occurred.

In the main tower of I-Island, inside the sub-level laboratory, the alarms around Esdeath's containment tube reached their peak. "It's unstable! The containment field is about to collapse! There's going to be a massive energy release!" a Yozakura technician screamed.

Slither could only watch in horror as the ice-coated glass tube vibrated violently. And then, a silent, invisible pulse of energy exploded out of the tube. It wasn't a blast of fire or sound. It was a pure pressure wave of absolute cold. The wave spread in all directions in an instant, passing through the lab walls, the tower, and spreading across the entire island.

On the battlefield above, Endeavor, who was about to unleash another fire attack, suddenly felt an unnatural chill seep into his bones, causing his flames to dim slightly. The heroes and villains alike paused for a moment, feeling the drastic and inexplicable drop in temperature.

At the command post, all of Hawks' screens were filled with static for two seconds. "What was that?! An energy spike from the tower... the scale... this is impossible!"

Beneath the sea's surface, the energy wave washed over Tatsumi and Akame. The cold didn't feel painful, but ancient and dominant. And somehow, in the darkness of his fading consciousness, Tatsumi felt something else within the wave—a faint whisper of emotion: confusion, annoyance... and curiosity. As if the sleeping monster had just stirred in its sleep and wondered what was bothering it.

Leone arrived at the location moments later. With her superhuman sense of smell and hearing, she quickly found their location. Without hesitation, she dove into the now intensely cold water. Her lion's strength allowed her to swim against the pressure, and her eyes could see in the dark. She saw Tatsumi's figure sinking rapidly.

With a silent roar, she swam down, grabbing Tatsumi's heavy armor and starting to pull him up. Akame, still conscious, helped by pushing from below. With incredible strength, Leone managed to drag them both back to the surface and onto the boat.

Tatsumi was unconscious, his face pale. Akame was shivering violently from cold and exhaustion, but her eyes were still alert. Leone quickly tore open an emergency thermal blanket and wrapped it around both of them. Her own healing factor was already beginning to fight the freezing effects on her body.

She grabbed her communicator. "Hawks, I've got them," she reported, her voice still a low growl. "They're alive, but Dragon Boy is out cold and his armor is completely dead."

She looked back towards I-Island. A strange, pale blue aurora was now faintly dancing around the top of the main tower, a phenomenon that should be impossible on this humid night. The entire island now felt... colder. The battle above seemed to have subsided slightly, all sides startled by the strange phenomenon.

The time bomb hadn't exploded. But its presence had now been felt by everyone on the battlefield.

"Hawks," Leone continued in a more serious tone. "Whatever is in that tower... I think she just... stretched."