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Kaede cannot breathe.

Passageways of air are blocked and she claws for air, fingernails digging into his fists and the other heroes, police officers and heroes in training running towards her to help, but minions atop minions block their passageways. Just like how him choking the living daylights out of her is terrible. Almost imperceptibly, she's lifted off the ground and other parts of her body are not even struggling because of his Compulsion.

Minutes and seconds are passing before her eyelids, her breath catching and the end is coming because her eyelids are closing, her neck is scorching and seconds are the only things needed to be counted before she meets her... end.

"Nothing personal, Kaede," he says, but there's a sense of satisfaction on his eyes that makes her believe otherwise and... a gust of air pushes both of them and they're both thrown at opposite sides with Kohaku landing on the handles of the bridge and Kaede gently on the floor.

"You okay, fam?" a voice calls and she looks up, groaning all the while at Caimie shielding two people. One is Honoka whose face is filled with concern at the sight of her and the other, with her once beautiful silver hair now a choppy bob and scratches littering her visage, Kaede's breath catches. Akihisa Yuko is standing next to Honoka, pacifying the girl and there's a mass of air twisting at her palms.

It takes minutes for her to nod as a sign for thanks, dusting herself off and fending off a minion who tried to attack her with a knife. Using her left foot to kick its face, she snatches the dagger away and knocks him unconscious with the hilt.

From the corner of her eyes, she sees Honoka and Yuko being led to safety with the assistance of Gang Orca and a couple of other officers. She decides that they're safe now and instead engages the minions that are slowly overpowering Officer Anri. It's seven against one, but with two of them now, the odds aren't that bad anymore.

Throwing a punch at one of the minions, stabbing his knee as she twisted and kicked his gut, Kaede blows a strand of her hair on her face. Taking two steps back after a minion hit her with a bullet, grazed her left leg, she ties the long sleeves of her cardigan tighter and when the action is concluded, she lunges.

A battle cry tears itself from her still burning throat and she deflects and throws attacks. Catching Officer Anri as she held the minions elbows, she sees the nod that's directed towards her and pushed the minion towards her.

She hears gunshot from the fingernails of the older woman and at her fingertips are needles the length of Kaede's thumb, all succinctly thrown shot at the minions heading her way. Maybe she isn't that overpowered earlier, but Kaede still helps her, grabs the shoulder of one minion from earlier and attacks him with a sidekick to his gut (with her right leg, since the left is still trickling blood from where the bullet hit her).

Running, Kaede follows a minion trying to escape and she flings herself towards it, the soles of her rubber shoes on its back and when it tries to raise its head, she hit it with a stomp on the head, winces at the sound of cracking bones.

When another lunges at her, probably someone from Kouda or Sero's part, Kaede evades it and she moves her own feet into position: left foot forward, right foot back, arcing the stronger part of her body towards her opponent.

With the speed of lightning, and fringes of his hair sparking with blue electricity, the minion rushes towards her and maybe he is not a minion at all, because his strength is formidable enough that his blade manages to glide inches from her side, hit her left shoulder and it stings so much that she grits her teeth.

With a colorful array of curses, she whirls towards him and attempts to slash with the dagger she stole from one of the minions earlier. He blocks with his sword, sends a course of electricity from his hair to his blade that would have hit her if she didn't take two steps back.

Leaping towards him again, when the electricity is gone, Kaede bends, strikes at his ankles, but she miscalculated the length of the dagger and it failed to hit her target earning her a harsh kick to her jaw, sending the dagger meters away.

When a crackling boot almost smashed her face, Kaede flings her body sideways and dodges it by a hairsbreadth, doesn't even have time to curse because another stomp tries to hit her. She flips backwards this time to avoid it, wincing at the imprints of its electricity charged boots on the metal surface on the bridge, and she's just in time on her feet when another minion, from behind, smacks her with concrete.

Groaning, Kaede straightens her posture, blood red eyes catching the glint of the dagger from earlier and overhead she sees Bakugou fighting Kohaku, sending waves upon waves of explosions that seem to shake the whole compound to the ground.

Expecting her guard to be down, the minion that smacked her with hollow blocks earlier lunges again only for Kaede to roll towards the dagger, grabbing it and swiftly slicing the minion that followed her upwards.

A shower of blood sprays her, damps her white T-shirt with crimson, but the warrior in her doesn't miss a beat, she turns away from the minion and heads towards her opponent earlier, dodging bolts of electricity sent by his hair along the way.

With a frustrated growl, the man with the lightning abilities lunged at her with his sword again, but over the course of deflecting, thrusting and parrying, Kaede catches sight of the pattern in his movements. There seems to be a time lapse between a bolt of electricity he releases, ten seconds she counts.

Kaede swings the dagger, just in time for a lapse in his lightning abilities, turns away from the upcoming sword and slashes. The man howls as the blade cuts across his torso, falls to the ground and the metal from his sword clanking.

She takes a deep breath, counts one to ten over and over again and when the fatigue washes away, she continues.

First, Kaede does a survey of her environment and with the nearest enemy preoccupied with battling Kouda and hundreds of worms, she steps on his hand clutching the sword and kicks the weapon away, following with a stomp to his head that only sends him unconscious. The older Kaede would have killed him, dealt the final blow, thinking that the best opponent was a dead opponent, but she trusts the law now. She has to stop playing god. (Although slicing a couple of men upwards and stomping vital parts of their body say otherwise).

Adrenaline from the battle fading, the smell of the blood that was sprayed all over her shirt makes her nose wrinkle in disgust, and her appearance is near horrifying, so she wipes it away with the cardigan tied over her waist. When she sees her cleaner reflection on one of the broken shards of glass from an enemy quirk, Kaede wears the cardigan over the shirt to lessen the appearance of blood on her chest.

Kaede feels a little stupid, 'cause originally, she was expecting one of those hostage situations wherein they swap things and stuff, not a full-on bloody battle so she chose the white T-shirt. Now, she wishes she wore black. Or something darker that can mask the blood.

Flexing her limbs, checking for damages, she decides to leave the battlefield to Kouda and the rest, before giving a roundhouse kick to a minion with octopus like limbs, and heads upstairs.

To where Kohaku is.

"What happened to you fam? Some vampire tried to bite you? Wait, dat's cray, isn't it? A blade?" Caimie comes up to her, scratches and cuts adorning her voluptuous visage, but no long slashes like Kaede.

"No, it was a sword."

The taller girl runs her fingers up her arm. She winces. It's a long and narrow cut, but shallow. Her jaw hurts more.

Kaede stares at her for a moment, not knowing what to say anymore until a voice breaks the silence. Flighty and sounding like the shimmering of stars, Akihisa Yuko flings a minion away from them with a gust and smiles.

"Weren't they supposed to be guided to safety?" Kaede asks, eyes narrowing at Yuko whose supposed to be safe and sound with Honoka now.

Caimie shrugs, "Meh."

"She's hurt?" Yuko asks Caimie and the latter nods.

"It's nothing," Kaede says and the girl walks towards them, still smiling and a staff in her hand. "I can still fight."

Yuko's face morphs to that of anger and she punches Kaede upwards sending some saliva from her mouth to the ground and her damaged jaw burning.

"That's," Yuko says, hands on her hips, "for stealing my life. You're probably beating yourself over it, but I've had my revenge"- does air quotes with her fingers, a habit she probably got from Kaede-"now, so you're forgiven."

Anyone would have been outraged by that, especially Kaede who is quick to anger, but the statement makes question marks appear on her face. "What?" she asks, straightening herself as Caimie looks blankly between them.

"I said you're forgiven," Yuko says, her voice a melodious lilt. "Now, we're going to there and help chili peppers, your crush or whatever."

"Just like that?!" Kaede demands, ignoring the statement about her crush.

Yuko raises her hands as if saying what can you do, and when Kaede's brows furrow in exasperation, she offers a quick explanation, "I'm a move on swiftly kind of girl. I don't take things to heart. If you want to talk about other things, let's do it someday, but now," she points to Caimie who's on her way upwards, "we have an enemy to defeat."

"Hurry up, gals!" Caimie calls at the top of the stairs, and Yuko follows suit and it's the first time she sees the girl's limp.

"Come on, Kaede," Yuko says as she passes her, grabbing her by the hand and it's a feat that she doesn't jerk away from her touch. "You know, I like your fashion sense. Just with less of the dark colors, but you get the gist. We could even be friends."

Kaede feels like fainting.

But she doesn't.

Instead, she runs until their hands are apart and they see Bakugou overpowered by Kohaku, his explosions evaded, and when the older man attempts to hit him with one of those staffs diffused with spikes that could detach with force and tainted with poison (Kaede knows, because she's used it once in her youth. That said, it wasn't as modern looking as it was now. And it certainly didn't create lightning).

Yuko uses a gust of air to blow Kohaku away and it doesn't take a genius to know that she's nearing her limit and before Caimie can attack Kohaku to prevent him from rising, she's stopped by two more minions. And when Kaede takes another survey at the scene, there are still six minions who look formidable in their own right.

Probably why Bakugou was almost overpowered. Almost, because the ash blond was rising, groaning and when Kohaku manages to stand up, lunge at him (Yuko is helping Caimie with her staff), Kaede steps in. She flings herself towards Kohaku, manages to land a sidekick to his ribs.

And she turns to Bakugou who watches her with an indiscernible expression, smiling as Honoka taught her and for the first time in two weeks, eight days, he identifies him not as Bakugou, but Katsuki.

"You looked like you needed some help, Katsuki."

He looked almost fond as explosions crackled at his palms.

"Kai."

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