The several-mile stretch of cityscape was called the Ghost Quarter, because nobody lived there. It was a remnant from one of Japan’s earliest big-threat villains, named Seismic, whose ability to control earth and ground-matter was still one of the strongest recorded Elemental Quirks to ever exist. The Ghost Quarter was the site of the final battle to take him down. It had been hard and gruesome. A shudderingly high casualty number. The damage to the city itself had been astronomical.

Class 1-A had gone there as part of a unit on minimizing collateral damage. They had been hit by a very powerful Fear Inducer Quirk.

Go in. Find your students, one at a time. Knock them out by breaking a capsule of Midnight’s Somnambulist, which could last about a half hour away from her body. Send up a single, and another teacher would carefully pick their way to the sleeping kid and bring them to the base outside the Ghost Quarter while you moved on to the next one. Simple plan. A good plan, even.

Tenya ran like an exhale. Like the only time he wasn’t thinking and worrying about a hundred different things was in the second before the run started.

That was not how Tenya was running now. This was the stuttering, desperate gait of someone who knew exactly what they had to lose, and was certain they were seconds away from losing it.

“Ida” You attempted. No response

“Iida Tenya,” You tried again, hoping the more personal aspect of a first name would help, that maybe the shock of his teacher being so familiar would be enough to get the kid to look at and see you. Iida skidded to a stop, and then used his momentum and an impressive hip pivot to deliver what would have been a cheekbone-crushing punch to the face, had you been a little slower.