The steel door that opened before us did not reveal a large room containing Overhaul as I had feared. My previous vision must have been a premonition, a warning of our final destination, not of what was directly in front of us. Instead, the door opened into a long, strangely normal Japanese-style corridor, with wooden floors and shoji paper walls. But the air inside felt heavy and suffocating. The voice of Overhaul we had heard earlier was just a trick from Irinaka, the villain who could control this building, toying with us.
"He's trying to separate us and wear us down," Ryukyu said, her sharp eyes scanning the seemingly endless corridor. "Don't be fooled by its calm appearance. Stay alert."
Our journey through the Hassaikai's underground labyrinth was an incredible test of patience and vigilance. The walls around us constantly shifted, twisted, and changed shape. A corridor that was once straight suddenly became a dead end. The floor beneath us would tilt without warning, forcing us to struggle for balance. The ceiling would lower, forcing us to crawl. This wasn't just a labyrinth; it was a living organism trying to swallow us.
Momo became our invaluable navigator. She constantly tried to map our movements on her tablet, even though the layout kept changing. "The wall in front of us just moved three meters to the left," she reported. "There should be an intersection behind this wall."
"I can break through it," Ryukyu said, preparing to use her power.
"Don't," I stopped her. "That's what he wants. He wants us to expend our energy destroying walls he can repair in an instant. We have to play his game, find a path, not make one."
We learned to work as a complete unit. Tsuyu, with her ability to stick to walls, often became our guide in areas where gravity felt wrong. Uraraka would make the debris blocking our path light, allowing us to clear it with ease. Nejire, with her ability to fly, became our eyes in the high, vertical corridors. And I... I became the compass. The constant feeling of disgust toward Overhaul's Quirk gave me a faint but consistent direction, a pull pointing downward, deeper into the heart of this complex.
After nearly an hour that felt like an eternity, we finally arrived in a different room. The walls stopped moving. We were in a spacious and serene Japanese-style reception hall, with a dry rock garden in the center and several shoji sliding doors around it. This place felt too peaceful. It was a bad sign.
Sure enough, as we all stepped inside, all the doors behind us slammed shut with a loud bang. We were trapped.
"Welcome, heroes," a lazy, drunken voice said. From behind one of the shoji doors, two figures stepped out.
The first was a tall, thin man with messy hair and an unsteady gait, as if he were heavily intoxicated. He wore the Hassaikai's signature plague mask and constantly took swigs from a large gourd tied to his waist. This was Deidoro Sakaki.
The second was his opposite. He was shorter, wore a neat suit, and stood with a stiff, straight posture. His masked face was cold and emotionless. He held a pistol in his hand. This was Shin Nemoto.
"Chisaki-sama sent us to welcome you," Nemoto said, his voice flat and toneless. "He is very interested to know more about you all before... the disposal process begins."
"Hahaha! Look at them!" Sakaki laughed. "They look so tense! You guys need a drink!"
Ryukyu stepped forward, positioning herself in front of us. "We don't have time for your games. Step aside, or we'll force you."
Sakaki just laughed harder. He raised his gourd to his lips, then stomped his foot on the floor. "Games?" he said. "The party is just getting started!"
As he said that, I felt the world around me suddenly tilt violently to the left. I stumbled, my head feeling dizzy as if I had just gotten off the most extreme rollercoaster. I saw my friends experiencing the same thing. Uraraka fell to a sitting position. Nejire, who had been floating, suddenly lost control and fell to the floor. Even Ryukyu, the mighty dragon hero, seemed to be staggering, her face showing confusion.
"What... what is this?" Ryukyu hissed, trying to stay upright.
"It's my Quirk! Sloshed!" Sakaki exclaimed with glee. "It messes with the semicircular canals in your inner ears! Your sense of balance is now mine! Welcome to a world that's always spinning!"
He was right. I felt incredibly drunk, even though I hadn't had a single drop. The floor felt like the deck of a ship in a storm. Every movement felt exaggerated and uncoordinated. It was the perfect area-of-effect debuff Quirk, disabling all of us without even touching us.
Sakaki, whose own body was used to this sensation, danced among us with strange yet nimble movements. He didn't attack with force, but with balance-disrupting jabs, pushing us as we staggered, making us collide with each other. He was toying with us.
Among all of us, I seemed to be holding up the best. Perhaps it was because of Incursio, which had an animalistic sense of balance, or perhaps because my adult mind was more capable of trying to fight this sensory disorientation. I was still staggering, but I could stay on my feet and try to focus.
"Don't rely on your eyes!" I yelled to the others. "Use your other senses! Feel the vibrations in the floor! Listen for his sounds!"
Nemoto, the quiet man, just stood in the corner, observing us coldly. He wasn't joining the fight. He was analyzing, looking for the right target.
The chaotic battle lasted for several minutes. Ryukyu, frustrated at not being able to use her power correctly, tried to transform, but the disorientation made it difficult to focus. Nejire tried to fire a wave of energy, but her attack went wide. We were completely incapacitated.
As we were all struggling, Nemoto finally made his move. He didn't aim for Ryukyu, the strongest. He didn't aim for me, the most stable. He aimed for the most emotionally vulnerable target. He raised his pistol—which I knew wasn't a normal gun, but a tool to activate his Quirk—and pointed it at Uraraka, who was still struggling to stand.
"You," Nemoto said in his flat voice. "The girl with the gravity Quirk. You seem so eager to be a hero. You seem to care so much about your friends."
Uraraka looked at him warily. "What do you want?"
"I just want to ask," Nemoto said, and I felt a strange energy emanate from his weapon. His Confession Quirk was active. "In the midst of all this chaos, on the verge of possible death... tell me, little hero. What is your greatest fear right now?"
Uraraka's eyes widened in horror. She tried to close her mouth, but her body no longer obeyed her commands. She was being forced to answer, to reveal her deepest vulnerability to our enemies. Her lips began to tremble, a whisper filled with fear and shame beginning to form.