Chapter 132 : Inside the Belly of a Fallen Mountain

Mirko's spirited words were still echoing in my ears as the three of us stood on the edge of the chasm of destruction. Before us lay a hellscape: the once-solid mountainside had become an ocean of unstable concrete rubble, twisted steel, and shifting earth. Smoke and steam billowed from the crevices, carrying with it the smell of ozone and burnt stone. Somewhere within this man-made tomb, Ryukyu was fighting for her life.

"Alright," said Edgeshot, his voice as thin and sharp as a silk thread. "The plan is simple. I go in first, find the most stable path. Mirko, you're behind me; destroy only what I command you to destroy. Don't cause any further collapses. Tyrant," he turned to me, "you are our compass. Stay in the middle, focus, and keep giving us a direction. Don't let us lose her signal."

I nodded, closing my eyes. I ignored the chaos around me and focused inward, on my dragon's heartbeat. I extended my senses, searching for that faint echo of Ryukyu's life. I found it. A faint pulse, deep below us, buried under thousands of tons of wreckage. "I've got it," I whispered. "She's below... straight ahead, about two hundred meters in."

With that, our impossible rescue mission began.

Edgeshot was the first to move. His body flattened like paper and he slipped into a narrow gap between two giant concrete slabs, disappearing from view. A few moments later, his voice came through our communicators. "It's clear. There's a service tunnel that's still partially intact here. But the entrance is blocked by a large steel beam."

"That's my part!" Mirko exclaimed with a wide grin. She leaped into the gap, and we heard a deafening CRACK!, followed by the sound of bending metal. "The way is open!"

Mirko and I followed him in. The inside of the mountain was even worse than it looked from the outside. The once-neat corridors were now twisted, unstable caves. Severed electrical cables dangled from the ceiling like dangerous vines, occasionally letting out sparks. Broken water pipes created small waterfalls that made everything wet and slippery. This was an active disaster zone.

Our journey was a slow and incredibly tense process. Edgeshot would slide ahead, his paper-like body allowing him to pass through the narrowest of crevices, mapping the dangers ahead. Then he would give us directions. Often, our path was blocked. That's when Mirko would act. With her powerful Luna Tijeras kick, she would shatter a collapsed concrete wall, or with her Luna Fall strike, she would smash a boulder blocking the path. She was our demolition machine, but she did it with a surprising precision, only destroying what was absolutely necessary.

I myself was the heart of this operation. My eyes remained closed, fully concentrated on the echo of Ryukyu's life. "A little to the left," I would whisper. "There's a large cavity behind that wall. We can get through it." Or, "Stop! This vibration... the floor in front of us is about to collapse. Find a detour."

In another part of the ruined mountain, Fat Gum's team was also fighting to survive. Amajiki, with his new crab hands, had managed to dig a small hole in the rockslide that trapped them.

"Almost there!" Kirishima yelled, still holding up the ceiling with his hardened back. "I can see light!"

But just as they were about to get out, they felt a different vibration. Not the tremor of a collapsing mountain, but the heavy, rhythmic thud of footsteps. Getting closer and closer.

"Something... something big is coming our way," Fat Gum said in a tense voice, his body still plugging the hole in the wall.

From the end of the dark corridor, a giant shadow emerged. It was Re-Destro, in his Stress 100% form. He looked at them with eyes blazing with anger. His Stress Quirk had sensed their unyielding "heroic spirit."

"Found you," he growled, his deep voice echoing in the tunnel. "Little heroes hiding like rats. I will enjoy... crushing you."

The fight for survival for Fat Gum's team had just entered a much deadlier chapter.

Back with my team, we continued to move deeper. The deeper we went, the stronger I could feel Ryukyu's signal. But I also felt something else. A piercing cold.

"The temperature here is dropping drastically," Mirko said, rubbing her arms. "So weird."

"I feel it too," I said. "Near Ryukyu-san's signal... there's a very strong source of cold energy." I remembered Endeavor's fight. "Geten," I whispered.

"That ice lieutenant?" Edgeshot asked through the communicator. "If he's there too, the situation becomes much more complicated."

We finally arrived in front of a thick wall of reinforced steel, the remnants of a giant vault door that had been twisted and shattered. "She's behind it," I said, my voice steady. "I'm absolutely sure."

"Alright," Mirko said, cracking her knuckles. "Step aside. Let me knock on the door."

She took a running start, leaped high into the air, and slammed her heel into the steel door with full force. BOOM! The door dented inward. She did it again. BOOM! And again. BOOM! With each blow, the dent grew larger, and cracks began to spread. With one final, deafening kick, the door finally gave way, thrown into the room behind it.

The three of us immediately entered with caution. The room behind it was a large natural cave, which had partially collapsed. The ceiling was filled with strange, giant ice stalactites, and the floor was coated with a thin layer of ice. And in the center of the room, we saw her.

Ryukyu.

She lay unconscious in her human form, pinned under a large steel beam that was part of a support structure. Several sharp concrete rebars had pierced her shoulder and leg, and blood had frozen around her wounds. But she was still breathing. Her life pulse was weak, but it was there.

"We found her!" I exclaimed in relief.

Mirko and I immediately ran toward her, intending to lift the steel beam. But Edgeshot stopped us. "Wait!" he hissed.

It was then that we realized it. We were not alone.

From behind a large ice pillar in the corner of the room, a shadowy figure stepped out. He wore the white cloak of the Meta Liberation Army, his pale white hair a contrast to the darkness of the cave. It was Geten. He didn't look badly injured, just a little dirty and very angry.

He looked at us with his cold blue eyes, then smiled faintly. "So," he said, his voice as calm and piercing as winter itself. "More rats have come to join the dragon in her ice tomb."