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Yaoyorozu Momo knows from the second that the portal swallows her whole that she won't be getting out of this attack without being forced to use the true power of her quirk.
Maybe she knew it from the moment she saw the villains spill out onto the plaza, from the moment she watched Aizawa-sensei give the class one last glance before turning to face an overwhelming horde of enemies. They're just low level minions, her mind whispers, but Eraserhead is an ambush predator and Thirteen is a rescue hero and their class is full of reckless rookies and Momo is too empathetic, too protective, too prideful to let any of them fall prey to this attack. When the villain's mist drops her into the middle of a group of thugs, she doesn't let herself hesitate.
It's still not enough. She is not so foolish as to think it would be. The crunch of Kaminari's bones will haunt her nightmares, right alongside his bloodcurdling scream and Kyouka's gasp of horror. Momo fights through the feeling of drowning helplessness, instead channeling her fury and launching into battle with the villain who dared to hurt one of her classmates, categorizing how his footwork is weak but fingers made of metal as Jirou covers her back with a shockwave attack.
As she falls back to crouch by Denki's side, the pragmatic part of her mind analyzes how his knee is concave, calculates the amount of time it'll take for medical attention to arrive, and notes that his life as a hero is over before it even began. The emotional part of her mind is horrified that she can count the indents of the villain's knuckles in his skin, one-two-three-four on a backdrop of blood and bone, and it is without a second thought that she c r e a t e s something she naively hoped she'd never have to use again.
Second chances come at a high cost. But what are a few minutes of Momo's life compared to an entire future stolen away?
Three minutes is all she needs to change the course of the battle. The sound her sword makes as it slides through the forearm of the man who would have ended Kaminari's career is a vicious sound, and Yaoyorozu takes a dark pleasure in it. Her calm ruthlessness catches her opponents off guard and she revels in the feeling, in the brutality of every slice of her blade; she can tell by the look on Kyouka's face that her classmate is horrified but the girl is level-headed enough to set it aside for later and focus on their battle.
The three of them find their way back to the plaza traumatized and splattered in blood, but blessedly, beautifully whole. That's good enough for Momo.
Then she watches her sensei leap into a losing battle, gazing on in horror as he's slammed into the ground by an inhuman monster on the orders of an unhinged man-child. The blood trickles across the floor from where Aizawa's skull is crushed, and it makes Yaoyorozu choke back a sob. Good enough goes up in smoke.
She forces herself to stay calm, to memorize every facet of the creature before her. Momo already knows she's going to c r e a t e again, of course she is. But she's not going to do so without a plan.
In the end, it's surprisingly simple. After all, shock absorption can be bypassed if you throw all of your power into a single point. And even a mindless creature unheeding of pain will be forced to pause if the nerves in it's brainstem are cut, and the moment it takes for the regeneration quirk to activate is enough to repeat the process. Momo doesn't have to defeat this creature, just hold it off long enough for backup to arrive. She can do that. (She doesn't have a choice.)
Eleven minutes are shaved off of her lifetime as she c r e a t e s and prays that her third chance is the charm.
The stiletto blade she makes is deadly sharp, reinforced titanium with a handle molded perfectly to fit her hand. It takes longer than she'd like to convince Tsuyu to launch her across the plaza, but Momo lands on top of the Noumu while the leader of the villains is distracted attacking Aizawa-sensei. She creates some extra adrenaline, just to be safe, and carefully aims for the base of the head.
Her blade sinks deeply into the creature's neck as it falls to the ground, Yaoyorozu tumbling forwards with it and gentling the shock of her landing with it's body. The hand-covered villain whips his head around in surprise as he watches a high school girl take down the monster designed to murder All-Might, and Eraserhead takes advantage of that moment of inattention to attack. But Momo can't afford to watch her teacher in action, so it is with a fragile faith that she turns around and trusts her sensei and classmates will watch her back as she yanks out her weapon and stabs downwards once again.
Over and over and over, the sickening sound of pierced flesh, the twitching of the monster as it's regeneration kicks in before once again being thwarted. Yaoyorozu distantly notes that there are tears running down her face, the hot trails of liquid a stark contrast to the feeling of blood drying on her skin. It is only the image of Aizawa-sensei lying dead on the plaza floor that keeps her going, her arms are burning and she wants to collapse but she can't, not when the memory of her teacher's demise echoes in her mind.
That is how All-Might finds her: hunched over the body of the creature that was supposed to kill him, face painted in determination and an eerie calm offset by her silent crying, every movement mechanical in it's precision as she stabs the monster's neck once again with the exact amount of force to break skin. Her confusion is evident as he gently (so gently) grabs her wrist, prying the stiletto blade out of her fingers and telling her softly that the heroes are here and she can stop.
"Pause," murmurs Momo absentmindedly as she's helped to her feet. At her teacher's questioning noise she just smiles brokenly, letting the shock finally wash over her. "You're ranked number one, sensei. You should know better than anyone else that heroes don't get to stop. Just pause."