Hey if there are any errors or wierd things I'm sorry I'm literally rushing to post this before my cruise gets too far out.
Hope yall enjoy
Chapter 34
Cid didn't waste time.
He stared down at the Nomu from the rooftop, eyes narrowing as he activated both of them to their fullest. The intricate patterns flared to life as he scanned the creature, searching for any structural weakness, any vital point he could exploit. Nothing came back. His Quirk gave him no information at all.
That gave him a good guess at what was going on.
'It has a Quirk that cancels foreign ones. Direct application won't work.'
He didn't get the chance to think further.
The Nomu dashed forward with terrifying speed, closing the distance between buildings in an instant. Cid appeared several rooftops away without hesitation. The creature adjusted course immediately, launching itself after him again.
This repeated multipletimes.
Cid kept moving, appearing across rooftops in rapid succession while the Nomu pursued. It wasn't mindless aggression, the thing was adapting, learning his movement patterns. But Cid wasn't trying to lose it yet. He was using the space to think.
'Close range is out. One more solid hit and I won't be able to move properly. Long range… spatial manipulation could work. If I can accelerate objects fast enough—'
His eyes caught a construction site a few blocks away. Rebar. Plenty of it.
Cid appeared behind the pile of steel rods. He grabbed one without slowing down, spun, and hurled it toward the Nomu with all the force he could manage. At the same time, he used his spatial manipulation to drastically increase its speed mid-flight.
The rebar struck the Nomu's left arm and detonated on impact, blowing the limb clean off at the shoulder.
Cid didn't stop. He grabbed another piece, then another, launching them in rapid succession. Each one struck with brutal force, tearing chunks out of the Nomu's body.
It didn't matter.
Within seconds, the severed arm regrew. The holes and tears in its torso sealed over like they had never existed. The Nomu didn't even slow down.
'This won't stop it, this only pisses it off. If I got a headshot it might kill it but thats the only thing its protecting
The Nomu's arm suddenly extended, stretching unnaturally across the distance. It smashed into the construction site where Cid had been standing a moment earlier, reducing the pile of rebar and surrounding equipment to twisted scrap. It lifted its massive hand, expecting to see a broken body underneath.
Cid was gone.
He stood on the roof of another building two blocks away, breathing steadily despite the pain in his ribs and the blood still running down the side of his head. His eyes remained locked on the Nomu, cold and calculating.
He needed a different approach.
-Later-
Cid's head throbbed and his vision was starting to blur. He couldn't tell what was causing it whether it was the blood loss, his pain from the broken ribs, or the concussion he definitely had from the opening attack. He just kept moving and dodging trying to make a plan.
He appeared on another rooftop, landing in a low crouch as pain flared through his broken ribs. The Nomu was already adjusting its trajectory, its jets flaring as it changed direction mid-air to pursue him. It was learning. Every time he blinked to a new position, it reacted a fraction faster than before.
He couldn't keep this up forever.
Direct application was useless. Shrinking the Nomu did nothing. Spatial movement on it was resisted. His ranged attacks with the rebar had only managed to annoy it before it regenerated. He needed something else.
The Nomu closed in again. Cid appeared further away, but this time he didn't just run. As the creature lunged, he focused on a point of space directly in front of it and expanded it as fast as he could.
The air detonated.
A concussive blast of pressure slammed into the Nomu from below, launching it higher into the air and throwing off its momentum. The technique was rough, uncontrolled, and caused his headache to spike horriblely but it worked. Cid used the opening to appear on another building, trying to pull the fight toward a section of the city he knew had already been mostly evacuated.
The Nomu recovered quickly. It twisted in the air and came at him again, faster this time. Cid barely managed another blast, this one smaller and more focused. It slowed the creature down, but not enough. The Nomu's arm extended mid-lunge, forcing Cid to blink away again.
He was adapting, but so was it.
Every exchange taught the Nomu something new. It started predicting where he would appear, by tracking where his eyes were looking, cutting off his escape routes and forcing him into tighter spaces. Cid could feel the gap closing. One more solid hit and he knew he wouldn't be able to keep moving like this.
Worse, the Nomu had started changing its targets.
It began veering toward clusters of civilians still being evacuated below. Cid was forced to divert his attention, using quick spatial shifts to pull people out of its path or shrink falling debris before it could crush them. Each time he did, the Nomu pressed the advantage, forcing him to split his focus between protecting the people below and avoiding its attacks.
After the third time, Cid realized what it was doing.
It was learning to bait him.
The Nomu didn't need to land a clean hit if it could exhaust him by making him choose between its attacks and the civilians. And it was working. Cid could feel his reactions slowing, the pain in his ribs making each movement sharper, the headache behind his eyes growing worse with every use of his Quirk.
Then it saw an opening and took it.
The Nomu grabbed a massive section of collapsed building and hurled it forward. The debris didn't come as one solid mass, it spread out, breaking apart mid-flight into a wide, scattered wave aimed at multiple groups of civilians still being moved to safety.
Cid's eyes widened.
He knew exactly what this was. The Nomu wasn't just setting up a distraction to tire him out this time it was making a opening. It was forcing him to make an impossible choice.
He gritted his teeth.
Cid stopped moving completely and started rapidly shrinking debris and moving those he had to move. He shrank the largest pieces first, breaking their momentum, then used rapid spatial shifts to pull the smaller chunks away from the people below. It was messy. Desperate. He knew he was leaving himself open.
The Nomu appeared right behind him, its arm already transformed into a long, jagged spike. There was no wind-up, no warning. It had been ready for this exact moment.
The spike drove forward.
But Cid didn't even have time to look away.
His focus stayed locked on the falling debris. A massive chunk was feet away from crushing a family still trying to scramble to safety below. He could see the trajectory clearly. If he moved now, they would die.
The Nomu was already on him.
He felt it more than saw it, the shift in the air, the sound of something cutting through the air behind him. Cid gritted his teeth and braced, refusing to abandon the people below.
'I'm Sorry…Yui.'
Right before the spike could drive through his back, a red-gloved hand slammed into the underside of the Nomu's arm with explosive force. The attack was diverted at the last second, the jagged spike tearing through the top of Cid's shoulder instead of his spine. Blood sprayed as the muscle was ripped open.
"POWER!!!"
Genuine surprise flashed across Cid's face.
Then, as the tension finally broke, a small, tired smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
"Right on time, Lemillion."