Chapter 128 : The Ice Tomb and the War in the Map Room

Principal Nezu's cold and terrifying statement—that we had just walked into an ice tomb—hung in the tense air of the Mobile Command Center. On the screens around me, the blue icons representing our heroes were no longer advancing with unstoppable momentum. Most of them were now stationary, trapped, or flashing red, indicating a fierce battle. The tactical map that was once our invasion plan had now turned into a chessboard where we had lost control of all our pieces.

A cold, heavy guilt gripped me. My intelligence. My plan. I had led them into this. I had underestimated the enemy's ability to adapt. I had seen the story, but I had forgotten that a real war is written in blood, not ink.

"Status report from all teams, now!" Nezu commanded, his sharp voice cutting through my reverie. He wasn't panicking. The genius strategist seemed most alive in the midst of a crisis.

The technicians around us shouted their reports. "Team Endeavor in Sector Alpha is blocked by an ice wall that appears to be constantly regenerating! They are being attacked from all sides!" "Team Fat Gum in Sector Gamma is trapped in a constantly shifting corridor! They're reporting attacks from non-human 'puppets'!" "Communication with Teams Delta and Epsilon is completely cut off!"

Every report was a nail in the coffin of our operation. Our plan for a swift lightning strike had turned into a brutal war of attrition inside a deadly labyrinth, and we were at a disadvantage.

In a giant ice cavern deep underground, Endeavor roared in anger as he unleashed another wave of fire. His incredibly hot flames hissed as they met the thick ice wall in front of him, creating a suffocating cloud of steam. But as soon as his flames subsided, the ice wall began to form again, creeping to close the gap he had just made.

"Damn it!" he growled. Around him, Mirko moved like a white flash, kicking and shattering the ice spears that shot at them from the darkness. But every time she destroyed one, two more appeared.

"We can't keep this up, Endeavor!" Mirko yelled, landing beside him. "We're like mice trying to gnaw through a glacier. We have to find this ice Quirk user!"

"And how do we do that, huh?!" Endeavor retorted. "We can't even see the end of this damn cave!"

From his hidden ice throne, Geten watched them with a faint, cruel smile. He was enjoying this. He enjoyed watching the arrogant Number One Hero being frustrated and helpless against his power. He didn't need to defeat them directly. He just needed to hold them here, wear them down, until another army came to finish them off.

In another narrow, constantly shifting corridor, Fat Gum's team was facing a different kind of horror. The walls around them seemed to be alive, growing concrete arms that swung at them or the floor suddenly turning into quicksand.

"This is Skeptic's 'Anthropomorphism' Quirk!" Fat Gum yelled, his large body absorbing a series of blows from the wall to protect the smaller heroes behind him. "He's turned this whole area into a trap!"

"I can't break it!" Kirishima exclaimed, his Unbreakable form useless against walls that constantly repaired themselves. "Every time I make a hole, it closes right back up!"

Amajiki, or Suneater, was in trouble. He hadn't had much to eat beforehand, so his Quirk manifestations were limited. "I... I need something... clams... or an octopus..." he muttered, his anxiety starting to take over.

Aizawa, who was with them, became their only hope. He would stare at one section of the wall, and Skeptic's Quirk in that area would deactivate, making the wall stop moving. "Now! Go!" he would command. They would run through that opening, only to find the corridor ahead changing again as Aizawa had to blink. It was an exhausting battle against the environment itself.

At the U.A. dorms, news of the massive battle in Gunma had spread. Emergency broadcasts showed helicopter footage from a distance, showing flashes of light and faint explosions from the mountainside. Reporters spoke in panicked tones about a "large-scale terrorist incident."

In the Class 1-A common room, my friends who weren't on the mission were gathered in front of the television, their faces pale. They didn't know the details, but they knew their teachers and several of their classmates were there.

"They're saying... the scale is bigger than Kamino," Uraraka whispered, her hand gripping Tsuyu's arm.

Momo stared at the screen with the intensity of a general observing a war map. She wasn't just watching; she was analyzing. She tried to connect the vague news reports with the partial layouts of the Humarise facility she had once seen. "The attack patterns... this chaos... this isn't just a simple attack. It's a coordinated defense. They've intentionally trapped the heroes," she muttered. She felt utterly helpless. She had the brain and the Quirk to help, but she was stuck here, dozens of kilometers away. She immediately opened her laptop, began compiling all the data she had, trying to figure out something—anything—that she could send to the teachers.

Back in the MCC, desperation was beginning to set in. "We're losing them," I said quietly, looking at the tactical map where more blue icons were turning red or disappearing. "The initial plan has completely failed. We can no longer order them to charge forward."

Nezu looked at me, his small eyes glinting sharply. "Then give me a new plan, Tatsumi-kun. You are the one who understands this enemy best. What would you do?"

I stared at the map, trying to think past my guilt. I remembered my dreams. The strategies of Night Raid. When faced with an impenetrable fortress, what did they do? They didn't attack the walls. They attacked the foundation.

"We can't get out," I said slowly, a crazy, very dangerous idea beginning to form. "So... we have to go deeper. We have to ignore the soldiers and the lieutenants. We have to go straight for the head. For Re-Destro." I pointed to a spot in the center of the underground structure on our 3D map. "If my intel is correct, their command center should be here. Under the main tower. If we can incapacitate Re-Destro and Trumpet, we can break the morale of the entire army."

"That's a suicide gambit," All Might said in a hoarse voice. "Any team we send there will have to go through their heaviest defenses."

"Indeed," I said. "But it's better than dying slowly in this labyrinth."

Nezu looked at my plan for a moment, then he smiled faintly. "A very high-risk gamble. I like it." He activated a priority communication channel. "Aizawa, Endeavor, listen up. We have a new strategy..."

As Nezu began to relay my desperate new plan, I went back to looking at the map. I was trying to find the safest path, the quickest way for them to reach the command center. It was then that I saw it. An anomaly. A very small service corridor that seemed to be unaffected by Irinaka's Quirk. It wasn't on the original blueprints. I zoomed in. It was an old tunnel, likely from the original mine before this facility was built.

And inside that tunnel, I felt an echo.

Very faint, very weak, but unmistakable. It was the same echo as Akame's. Cold, sharp, and deadly.

She was here. Somehow, she was also inside this labyrinth.

My mind raced. What was she doing here? Was she following us? Or did she have her own objective, namely Re-Destro? Whatever the reason, her presence was an unknown variable that could change everything.

I was debating whether I should report this to Nezu when a short, sharp vision hit me. It was a memory from the original Tatsumi. He was in a failed infiltration mission, cornered in a collapsing cave. Beside him stood Bulat, laughing. "Sometimes, when you can't find a way out," his mentor said in the memory, "you have to make your own by bringing the ceiling down on the enemy's head."

An even crazier idea popped into my head. An idea born from desperation and a warrior's memory.

I grabbed the microphone connected directly to Endeavor's channel. "Endeavor-san," I said, my voice urgent. "Disregard previous orders. I have a new target for you. A much more important target."

Inside the ice cave, Endeavor turned toward his communicator. "Speak, boy!"

I pointed to a spot on the structural map above me, a point located deep within the mountain itself. "This... this is the center of the underground geothermal support system that sustains the entire complex. If you can superheat this point with your strongest Prominence Burn..."

I didn't need to finish my sentence. Nezu, who heard my plan, his eyes widened in horror and awe.

"Tatsumi, are you insane?!" Aizawa's panicked voice came over the communicator. "That could kill everyone, including the heroes who are in there!"

I stared at the map, at the blue icons of our trapped friends and heroes. Ryukyu's face flashed in my mind.

"It's our only way," I replied, in a cold voice that didn't feel like my own.