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Chapter 29 - 29: Fear

The battlefield lay in eerie stillness, the air thick with tension and the scent of scorched earth. The remnants of previous clashes smouldered, casting a hazy veil over the devastated landscape. Amidst the ruins, heroes and students alike stood, their bodies battered and spirits strained, yet their resolve unbroken.

Suddenly, a low, guttural rumble echoed across the field, growing in intensity until the very ground trembled beneath their feet. A massive portal, swirling with dark energy, tore open the fabric of reality. From its depths emerged a towering figure, its form obscured by shadows and an aura of malevolence that seemed to suck the light from the surroundings.

As the entity stepped forward, its full form became visible—a grotesque amalgamation of sinew and glinstone, its body pulsating with an unnatural blue glow. The creature's eyes, devoid of emotion, scanned the battlefield with a predatory gaze. With each step, the earth cracked, unable to bear the weight of its presence.

A feeling of malevolence radiated from the Nomu, washing over the heroes and students like a tidal force. The students, unprepared for such malevolence, doubled over, retching uncontrollably. Their faces turned pale, and their bodies trembled as an overwhelming sense of dread took hold.

The pro heroes fared little better. Endeavor, despite his fiery resolve, staggered, his flames flickering erratically. Mirko's confident stance faltered, her muscles locking up as goosebumps erupted across her skin. Hawks, usually composed, found his wings twitching involuntarily, his breath caught in his throat.

Even the other Nomu, mindless beasts of destruction, halted their rampage. They stood frozen, their heads bowed as if acknowledging the arrival of a superior entity. The battlefield, once a cacophony of chaos, fell into an unnatural silence, broken only by the laboured breaths of those struggling to withstand the Nomu's presence.

A pressure that wasn't sound, wasn't heat, wasn't anything physical—but it violated the mind.

The students collapsed.

Uraraka dropped to her knees, vomiting violently.

Iida's engines sputtered, his legs buckling. Bakugo's palms sparked weakly before his entire body convulsed, sweat pouring down his face. 

"G-Goddammit—!" he choked out, his vision swimming.

Todoroki's ice shattered before it could form. His stomach lurched, and he barely managed to stay upright by sheer willpower.

A deep sickness that rolled through their stomachs like a plague. Yaoyorozu and Jiro both clutched their chests, trying not to retch. Kaminari whimpered, a hand to his mouth.

"What... is that?!" Tokoyami muttered, sweat streaming down his forehead despite the freezing pressure in the air.

All Might, battered and breathing heavily from his fight with All For One, turned his head slowly. "This p-resence! ALL FOR ONE WHAT THE EHLL DID YOU BROUGHT IN THIS WORLD?!" His fists clenched, but even he staggered a step.

All across the stadium and battlefield, heroes stumbled. Fat Gum fell to one knee, muttering,

"My body… won't move." Mirko snarled, her instincts screaming louder than ever. Hawks stood frozen mid-flight, wings bristling as he felt every cell in his body scream to run.

Then it stepped out.

The Nomu.

Its body was a mass of pulsating, twisted muscle and obsidian armor-like skin, veins glowing with eerie azure—the unmistakable shimmer of glinstone and shoulders, glowed with an unnatural light, all blinking at different intervals. Behind it, a ragged cape of sinew and bone trailed like a death banner. Its claws looked honed for dissection, not combat. There was no roar, no battle cry—only silence, as if the world itself held its breath.

It took one step.

The earth cracked.

Then came the wave.

A wave of torment. Not visible, not sound, but a curse. The mere aura the creature emitted slammed into the hearts and minds of all around it. Students screamed. Mineta fainted outright. Tsuyu gritted her teeth, fighting to stay conscious. Bakugo's pupils shrank to pinpoints, and for once, he said nothing.

"Make it stop!" someone yelled from the stands.

The Nomus that had been fighting—vicious, mindless monsters—froze where they stood. They turned toward the newcomer and stopped moving. No rage. No loyalty. They just stopped. They knew. In their limited minds, they understood: something had arrived that didn't belong. Something ancient. Something wrong.

"That thing..." Endeavor growled, his flames flickering erratically. "It's like looking into hell."

Hawks' feathers trembled, his usual smirk wiped away. "We can't… move…"

And still, Enrai did not move.

He watched.

The wind around him was still. The dust settled slowly at his feet, swirling in gentle circles. His crimson eyes narrowed as he examined the creature. Not fear. Not anger. Curiosity. Somewhere deep inside, something stirred— brought back the memories that shouldn't exist in this world.

This thing...

It resonated.

The air screamed.

A presence—something that should not exist in this world—descended upon them.

The ground beneath the central portal blackened, as if reality itself was rotting away.

And then—

He stepped forward.

Tall. Impossibly so. His form was humanoid, but wrong—too perfect, too still, as if carved from the void itself. His face was obscured by a smooth, featureless mask, but the weight of his gaze made every living thing shrink.

The Nomu didn't just kneel.

They stopped breathing.

The students, still writhing in agony, could only watch in horror.

The being didn't speak.

It didn't need to.

Its presence alone was a command.

Silence.

Then it happened.

One of the regular Nomu—still crazed, still acting on basic commands—broke the spell. It lunged at an exhausted hero: Kamui Woods, who could not react in time.

He raised his arm too late. "Damnit—!"

SHLK!

The sound came before the image. A blur, a flash of azure light, and then silence. The attacking Nomu stood frozen for a heartbeat longer—his head missing, its torso split cleanly down the middle.

The Nomu's head was gone.

No one saw it happen.

One moment, the Nomu was mid-air, claws outstretched.

The next—its body crumpled to the ground, headless.

The hero it had been attacking blinked. "Huh…?"

Gasps erupted. As they saw it,

The sinister presence that just came had one of this hands raised.

In one clawed hand, it held the decapitated head like a trophy. No rage, no pride. Just... statement.

Then—

A wet thud.

The crushed, twitching skull of the Nomu that dared to act.

Blood dripped slowly. No flourish. No roar. No declaration.

Just a message.

Disruption… was death.

The Nomu's head landed at the being's feet.

"How... how did it move that fast?!" Ryukyu gasped. "I didn't see it move! Did anyone see it move?!"

"I didn't even see it move," Gran Torino muttered, his voice quiet, but the weight of his words thundered through every soul present.

Gasps rippled across the field. For the man whose speed once rivaled—and even surpassed—All Might's to admit such a lapse?

It was unthinkable.

Heroes exchanged glances, their confidence cracking. If Gran Torino couldn't track the creature... then who could?

Endeavor gritted his teeth, wiping blood from his cheek.

"That wasn't speed. That was something else."

Midnight stumbled back. "It… beheaded one of its own. Without effort."

Aizawa, though dry-eyed and bruised, clenched his fists. "It's intelligent… aware… maybe even higher in command."

Hawks, from the sky, lowered altitude. "Is this… despair I'm feeling?"

The students were worse.

Deku's mouth opened, but no words came. His instincts screamed. The pressure… was worse than All For One.

Iida put a protective arm in front of Todoroki and Asui, trembling.

"Impossible," muttered Todoroki. "It paralyzed all of us…"

Mineta , Kaminari and many other students were unconscious , unable to handle the pressure.

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The battlefield lay in shattered disarray—broken stone, fractured steel, and the faint whimpers of wounded heroes mingling with the cries of retreating civilians. Smoke curled into the sky, carrying the heavy scent of ash and charred concrete. Yet in the center of it all, a silence more terrifying than any roar had taken hold.

Standing still as stone, Hoshigami Enrai—Radahn—watched the creature before him.

No, not a creature. Not a Nomu.

This was something else entirely.

The corrupted monstrosity of flesh and glinstone pulsed with an unholy rhythm. Its frame was massive, even by Nomu standards, but disturbingly lean, with sinewy muscle wrapped in blackened tissue, almost as if grafted together with arcane precision. Glints of blue-red shimmered beneath its skin—veins of crystallized ore pulsing faintly with power not of this world. Its head twitched, jaw locked open in a slow, unnatural inhale. Its eyes burned—not with rage, not with fury, but with intelligence. With recognition.

Enrai narrowed his gaze. His eyes locked with the Nomu's.

And the world itself seemed to hold its breath.

Around them, the air thickened—oppressive and charged with invisible weight. Scarlet aura radiated from the Nomu like a field of death, crushing the atmosphere. A cold wind swept through the stadium, and with it came silence.

Blue.

A flicker, subtle at first, then brighter.

Enrai's own aura began to seep into view, a shimmering contrast to the deep red around him. His presence, like a tidal pressure, met the Nomu's oppressive fear-mist. Blue sparks danced at his feet, his cloak rippling against a wind no one else could feel.

Neither moved. Neither blinked.

They stood mere feet apart, eyes locked, a singular axis of pressure warping the battlefield itself.

From the side-lines, Pro Heroes and students alike watched with a mixture of awe and horror.

"W-What are they doing?" Yaoyorozu muttered, unable to tear her eyes away.

"They're not fighting yet." Tokoyami whispered, voice unusually shaken. 

Bakugo, teeth clenched, fists trembling, cursed under his breath. "Tch… What the hell even is that thing!?"

Todoroki didn't respond. He was pale. His ice-cold gaze was glued to Enrai.

"This aura…"

Meanwhile, in the skybox, Gran Torino—already battered and bruised—watched the standoff with a steely gaze.

Silence followed his words, sinking into the stomachs of every hero who heard it.

Gran Torino—the man whose speed had once rivalled All Might himself. The man who could disappear and reappear in blinks. The man who trained the Symbol of Peace.

And even he hadn't seen the moment the creature reacted to the earlier Nomu's insolence. No one had. The head had appeared in its grasp as if time had skipped.

A quiet tremor ran through the Pro Hero line.

"Are we even fighting… something alive?" Edgeshot murmured.

"I can't even feel its intent--" Kamui Woods said, sweating. "It's l-like we're beneath its notice."

Midnight was kneeling beside a collapsed student, trembling fingers brushing hair aside.

"What the hell has this villain unleashed?!"

And still, Radahn didn't flinch.

He could feel it now. The connection. A flicker of memory deep within the glinstone residue embedded in the Nomu's veins. Something… old. Familiar. Not of this world. Echoes of celestial battles fought beneath shattered moons, voices carried across constellations long dead.

Radahn didn't show it, but he was intrigued.

This… abomination… wasn't born of this earth. No. It had been sculpted. Forged.

Because of him.

He took a slow breath, exhaling through his nose, eyes half-lidded as he stared deep into the burning gaze of the thing before him.

Then, he spoke—calm, deliberate, and absolute.

"…Since you were born into this world because of my interference…"

The red and blue auras clashed silently—like waves brushing one another without colliding.

"…it's only natural that I remove you myself."

The Nomu didn't respond with words.

It didn't need to.

The battlefield shivered once more, the stand-off reaching a crescendo. Cracked ground trembled beneath their feet. A crow screamed in the distance. The clouds above churned like a whirlpool, sky dimming ever further.

All waited for the chaos to come.

But still, they didn't move.

In a blink of an eye—no, not a blink. It was as if time itself had stopped.

The battlefield, once echoing with chaos and battle cries, fell under a chilling silence. The wind stopped moving. Dust hung frozen mid-air. And in that eerie stillness, two towering beings now stood face-to-face.

The moment they were suddenly face to face—so fast it defied human comprehension—the entire battlefield lurched with disbelief.

Gasps erupted from every direction.

"What just—?" Mirko's words caught in her throat as her instincts screamed to run, to intervene, to protect… but her legs remained rooted in place.

"They… They didn't move," said Aizawa, blinking rapidly, his Erasure quirk long forgotten under the weight of the aura pressing down on him. "It's like the space itself brought them Infront of each other."

"Like they skipped time." murmured Hawks, sweat sliding down the side of his face. His wings twitched with nerves, but not even his hyper-speed reflexes had caught the transition.

Among the students, fear spread like wildfire.

Some collapsed to their knees, clutching their chests, unable to breathe. Some vomited. Others wept without realizing. Uraraka trembled uncontrollably, her hands sparking. Iida stood frozen, teeth chattering, his motor-legs whirring in idle panic.

"H-how did they?" Yaoyorozu whispered, clutching her arm as if bracing for an explosion.

Midoriya's voice cracked, his hands trembling as he clutched at the scorched earth.

"He was so far and now standing there? That thing's terrifying—what if—?"

Kirishima grit his teeth. "Enrai's strong. He'll be fine. Right? He's got this… right?"

But no one responded.

Todoroki stared, silent, his mismatched eyes fixed on the golden-red aura of Enrai that pulsed steadily against the cold, drowning darkness in front of him. His breath fogged in the suddenly freezing air.

Bakugo snarled low, barely audible. "The hell-"

Even Kaminari's usual panic was gone—replaced with the wide-eyed stare of someone looking at something utterly unnatural.

Tears welled in Asui's eyes. "Enrai-sensei.."

From behind the lines, the injured Endeavor grunted from where he'd been leaning against a broken wall, blood trickling down his cheek. His hand ignited for a second—then flickered out.

"No!" he rasped, voice hoarse but resolute. "He's not scared. He's measuring it. Waiting. Judging it."

Gran Torino, unusually grim, stared between the two figures.

"They're not fighters anymore." he said, the edge in his voice sharper than ever.

"They're forces. Enrai's not facing just a monster. He's facing… something that we shouldn't."

Every pro hero's heart beat heavier. Every student watched with their soul in their throat.

And in the eye of that crushing silence… Enrai simply stared.

Enrai. The Conqueror of Stars. A titan in his own right, now in this form standing at 6'7'', shrouded in a rippling golden-red aura that flickered like a dying sun about to erupt. The very air around him shimmered with heat and divine pressure.

And yet… the creature before him dwarfed even his colossal presence.

9 feet 8 inches of raw, pulsing menace. A distorted humanoid form, its skin a patchwork of sinew and deep slate muscle, fused with jagged glinstone ore that shimmered unnaturally with every movement. It wasn't just a Nomu. It couldn't be. Its black-blue aura crept across the earth like ink in water—sinister, erratic, alive. The sky dimmed overhead, and the stadium lights flickered and dimmed without warning, shadows growing longer across the cracked arena.

The air grew cold—not metaphorically, but physically. Condensation formed on stone, on armor, on skin. Breath misted in front of terrified onlookers. The temperature plummeted by the second.

Pro heroes were no better. Aizawa's scarf hung limp as he struggled to focus. Present Mic took a single step back before catching himself. Ryukyu shifted back into her human form instinctively, wings trembling. Even Mirko, teeth grit and ready to spring, found her muscles refusing to obey.

Kamui Woods, sweat beading down his brow despite the cold. "Why can't I move…"

No one noticed that the other Nomus had stopped fighting. Not frozen in fear of battle—but paralyzed. Their empty eyes now stared at the new being like mindless subordinates recognizing a higher, absolute authority.

And yet, in the center of that storm, Enrai stood unmoved.

His golden-red aura surged subtly in reply, tendrils of star fire swirling around his form, undeterred. He didn't speak. He didn't flinch. His glowing eyes peered deep into the being's abyssal gaze.

There was no hatred. No fear.

Only... recognition.

Somewhere in the deepest part of his ancient memory, something stirred. That glinstone… that cursed ore… that echo… it resonated with something older than even this world.

But there was no time to dwell.

The pressure cracked the stadium floor beneath them. Stones lifted and hovered in mid-air as the auras of both entities collided in silence. The contrast was devastating—light clashing against dark, heat against cold, creation against defilement.

And in the eye of this cataclysm stood two titans. Unmoving. Unblinking.

Watching.

One student whispered, barely audible.

"ls he gonna be okay?"

Another sobbed. "He's not moving. Is Sensei… scared?"

Even All Might himself—he couldn't track it?

But Enrai didn't break eye contact. He knew.

He understood.

The creature wasn't attacking. Not yet. It had made its statement.

The silence was worse than the scream that followed.

Again , The message was made clear.

Do not disrupt his presence.

Even if no words were spoken, every soul—hero, villain, Nomu—felt it.

The temperature continued to fall.

Enrai exhaled slowly. His God eyes locked onto the creature's face

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