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In the dust-choked silence of the ruins, only three things existed: the traitor, the witness, and the weapon.
Void's glowing green eyes, which had been fixed on Aoyama with cold disappointment, snapped to the crumbling wall. They narrowed, the light within them intensifying from a dim ember to a focused, predatory beam. He had not just seen a movement; he had registered a heat signature, a heartbeat, a variable that had just turned critical. And now, he was staring face to face with that problem, which was standing straight a few meters high.
Aoyama followed his gaze, and a fresh wave of nausea overwhelmed him. "N-No..." he whispered, his body trembling so violently he could barely stand.
Void's head slowly swiveled back to Aoyama. The mechanical hum of his metal mouthgaurd hitched, and when he spoke, his voice was a low, digital snarl, stripped of all pretense of calm.
"You. Stay. Put."
Each word was a shard of ice, a command that brooked no argument. "If you compromise this further," Void continued, his voice dropping to a whisper that was somehow more terrifying than a shout, "the suffering that my master will visit upon your family will be the stuff of legend. Do you understand?"
Aoyama could only manage a frantic, jerky nod, his jaw clenched shut to keep his teeth from chattering. He was a statue of pure terror.
Void turned away from him, his entire posture shifting. The reprimand was over. The extermination had begun.
He didn't run. He took one deliberate step forward, then another. Then, with a sound like a thunderclap, he vanished from Aoyama's sight, reappearing in a blur of motion directly in front of the wall where Ojiro had thought he was perfectly hidden just to be wrong a few seconds earlier.
Ojiro's blood ran cold. He had seen the look. He was made. His martial artist's instincts screamed at him to flee, but his feet felt rooted to the spot. The sheer, oppressive pressure of Void's presence was a physical weight.
Void didn't bother searching. He cocked his fist back, and the air around it warped, shimmering with repulsive energy. With a contemptuous, almost lazy motion, he drove his fist into the base of the faux-brick wall.
BOOM.
The world dissolved into noise and shrapnel. The entire section of the wall, a construct of concrete and steel reinforcement, didn't just break; it erupted. Chunks of debris the size of cars were launched outward as a shockwave of pure force vaporized Ojiro's cover. The tailed hero-in-training was sent flying backward, tumbling through the air before landing hard in a cloud of dust and shattered rock.
Ojiro scrambled to his feet as he coughed uncontrollably from the intensive dust while his vison swarm.
Run. Have to run.
Have to warn someone. He didn't look back, channeling all his strength into his legs and tail, propelling himself toward the gaping maw that led out of the Ruins Zone. He was fast and agile, weaving through the skeletal remains of buildings with a grace born of years of discipline.
He risked a glance over his shoulder. Nothing but settling dust.
A flicker of hope. Maybe he had gotten away. Maybe—
He rounded a corner and skidded to a halt, his heart seizing in his chest.
Void was already there.
He stood in the center of the path, perfectly still, as if he had been waiting for hours. Dust motes drifted lazily in the air around him, untouched by the chaos he had just unleashed. His green eyes burned in the shadows of his hood.
"Where," Void's deep voice echoed softly in the ruined street, the exact contrast to what the weights carry behind them. "do you think you're going?"
Ojiro's breath came in ragged pants. Fear was a cold fist around his lungs, but beneath it, a spark of defiance ignited. What was he doing, heroes don't shake in the presence of evil. He was a hero. He would not be cowed. He fell into his signature fighting stance, tail rising high and coiling like a serpent ready to strike. His voice, though laced with fear, was clear and firm.
"I don't know what business you have with Aoyama," Ojiro declared, his eyes locked on the monster before him. "I don't know why you're here. But I am a student of UA High School. And I will not go down without a fight!"
For a fraction of a second, something shifted in Void's dead gaze. A flicker of... something. Amusement? Respect? Annoyance? He gave a slow, almost imperceptible nod.
"Guts," he hummed. "I'll give you that."
It was the only warning Ojiro got.
The fight was a brutal, one-sided ballet. Ojiro was a master of his craft, his tail a blur of precise, powerful strikes. He ducked under a swipe that could have taken his head off, using the momentum to spin and deliver a devastating roundhouse kick with his tail aimed at Void's knee.
THWACK.
The impact echoed. It was like hitting solid titanium. Void didn't even flinch.
Ojiro pressed his advantage, unleashing a flurry of jabs and kicks aimed at pressure points. He was fast, he was accurate. A punch to the ribs, a tail-sweep to the ankles. He was landing hits. But it was like throwing pebbles at a mountain.
After a flurry of assaults from the hero in training, Void moved. It wasn't a dodge; it was a phase. He simply wasn't where Ojiro's attack was aimed. A massive hand shot out, faster than sight, and clamped around Ojiro's tail.
A grunt of pain escaped Ojiro's lips as he was yanked off his feet. He was swung through the air like a ragdoll and slammed back-first into a concrete pillar. The air exploded from his lungs. Before he could even process the pain, Void was on him, his other hand closing around his throat, pinning him against the cracked stone.
Ojiro struggled frantically, his vision spotting at the edges, his fingers clawing uselessly at the iron grip around his neck. He was utterly, completely overpowered.
Void leaned in close, his glowing eyes the only thing Ojiro could see. The hum of his mouthguard was the only thing he could hear.
"You shouldn't have been here." Void whispered, the words laden with a strange, ominous finality. It wasn't a threat; it was a statement of fact. A eulogy.
Desperate, Ojiro managed to crane his neck, his eyes finding the distant, petrified figure of Aoyama, still standing frozen where Void had left him.
Why was he just standing there?! Do something!
"AOYAMA!" Ojiro choked out, his voice a raw, broken thing. "WHY?! WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?! WHAT DID THEY DO TO YOU?!"
The questions hung in the air, a desperate plea for reason in a world gone mad.
Before anything could transpire, a new sound echoed in the vicinity. A faint, static crackle in Void's ear. Then a voice, smooth and calm, filtered through his comms. One Aoyama and Ojiro recognized immediately, it was the voice of the portal creature.
"Void. Report. Your presence is required at the central plaza. The situation is escalating."
Void didn't move. His grip on Ojiro's neck didn't loosen. His glowing eyes remained locked on his victim. The silence stretched, thick and heavy with the weight of a life in the balance.
Kurogiri's voice came again, a subtle edge to it. "Void. Acknowledge. What is the situation?"
Another beat of silence. Ojiro's struggles grew weaker by the second.
Finally, Void spoke, his voice flat and devoid of all emotion, a stark contrast to the storm raging behind his eyes.
"We have... a compromise."
Inside his mind, it was anything but calm.
He saw. He knows about the traitor. A security breach. A loose end. In logical sense, it was a simple tactical solution: Eliminate the loose end. Erase the variable.
But for some reason, another voice; the empathic, weak one that surfaced in times like these, whispered through the static.
He's just a student. He was brave. A poor brave bastard, who has no idea what he's stumbled into. He's a good person, unlike the other fake heroes of society. Too bad he would likely be tainted by their ideology soon enough.
The image of Aoyama's terrified face superimposed over Ojiro's defiant one. The poor bastard. He just got tangled in a web he never saw. He doesn't deserve this. Does anyone? Do I?
The conflict was a physical pain, a system error that made the red scars on his skin pulse erratically. To kill him was clean, efficient, reasonable. To let him live was a catastrophic risk, unreasonable…
…Unless…
He looked down at Ojiro, whose eyes were wide with fear and lack of oxygen, but still held a flicker of that stubborn defiance.
Kill him?
Or let him live?
The choice was his. And the fate of the tailed hero, the traitor, and the very soul of the weapon known as Void, hung in that terrible, silent moment. He gritted his teeth in his metal mouthguard.
Should have stayed back with Shigaraki in the first place.
_______________
Central Plaza…
Bleakness and the coppery tang of Aizawa's blood was all a suffocating blanket that pressed down on Ochaco, Sero, and Shoji, who stood back-to-back in a fragile triangle of defiance. They were an island in a sea of malice, surrounded by a tightening ring of jeering, leering villains. The crumpled, still form of their teacher was a stark, horrifying monument just a few yards away, a constant reminder of the stakes.
At the epicenter of the chaos, flanked by the ever-calm Kurogiri, Shigaraki watched with the detached curiosity of a gamer observing NPCs. His fingers twitched, but they remained buried in his pockets.
"Tomura Shigaraki," Kurogiri's smooth voice cut through the ambient snarls. "Do you not wish to partake? It would expedite matters."
Shigaraki's cracked lips stretched into a grin beneath the disembodied hand. "Nah. Not really. Look at them. They're shaking. This is the tutorial level. Let the minions grind for a bit. The kids'll be handled."
His words were the signal. A villain with rock-like skin roared and charged. The dam broke.
"Don't let them break the formation!" Shoji bellowed, his voice a chorus from multiple mouths. Six arms sprouted, fanning out to form a living shield. Sero's elbows twitched, and strands of tape shot out, snagging the ankles of two charging thugs and sending them sprawling face-first into the concrete.
Ochaco's heart hammered against her ribs. Fear was a cold stone in her gut, but it was being steadily eclipsed by a hotter, sharper emotion: a raging, grief-stricken fury. Thirteen-sensei was gone. Aizawa-sensei was dying. And these monsters were treating it like a game.
She slapped a piece of flying debris, sending it floating. With a powerful kick, she sent the weightless chunk of concrete careening into a villain with extendable arms, knocking him off balance.
The fight was a chaotic symphony of clashing quirks. A man who could liquefy the ground beneath his feet was countered by Sero taping him to a solid pillar. A woman emitting disorienting sound waves was silenced by Shoji, who formed a giant ear to pinpoint her location and a massive fist to punch the wall beside her head, the concussive blast stunned her instantly.
But they were outnumbered twenty to one.
A wiry goon with a serrated knife saw an opening and without hesitation, ducked under one of Shoji's sweeping limbs. With a triumphant cackle, he slashed upwards, cleanly severing one of Shoji's duplicated arms at the bicep.
"Gotcha, you freak!" the knife-wielder sneered.
Shoji didn't cry out. He simply grunted, and from the stump, new flesh and muscle writhed and spiraled, regenerating a new, fully-formed arm in a matter of seconds. The new hand flexed, ready for battle.
The surrounding villains paused, their faces a mixture of shock and revulsion.
"The hell?!" one spat. "It just… grew back! That's disgusting!"
Another, a large heteromorph with crustacean-like claws, turned on his comrade, his voice booming with offense. "Hey! What's that supposed to mean, 'disgusting'?! I grow limbs too and I'm standing right here, you racist piece of—!"
THWIP! CRACK.
Sero's tape wrapped around the crab-villain's mouth, yanking him shut mid-insult. "Sorry, big guy," Sero grunted, sweating. "No time for a sensitivity seminar."
The momentary distraction was all Ochaco needed. Her eyes, burning with unshed tears and pure hatred, were locked on Shigaraki. He was the leader. He was the one who gave the orders. He was the one who stood there, doing nothing, while her teacher bled out.
She saw an opening, a gap in the brawling crowd. Gritting her teeth, she activated her quirk on herself. Her body became light as a feather. With a powerful leap, she shot over the heads of the brawling villains, a human comet aimed directly at the villain mastermind.
"YOU!" she screamed, her voice raw, hurtling fist-first towards Shigaraki's smug face.
She never made it.
Kurogiri's misty form rippled. A dark purple portal bloomed directly in her path. Instead of connecting her fist to Shigaraki's jaw, she flew straight into the void and was unceremoniously spat out the other side, colliding hard with a recovering Sero. The two of them went down in a tangle of limbs, skidding across the rough concrete.
"Uraraka!" Sero cried out, scrambling to untangle himself.
They looked up to see a fresh wave of villains, seeing them downed and vulnerable, swarm in with hungry eyes. "Easy pickings!" one growled, raising a spiked club.
Just as the club began its descent, the ground shook.
CRAAAAACK!
A figure dropped from the upper level like a meteor, landing between the downed students and the swarming villains with a force that shattered the plaza tiles. Sato rose from his crater, his body swollen with muscle, his eyes blazing with righteous fury. He stood, a bulwark of sheer mass, his knuckles bleeding from the impact.
"Sato!" Shoji called out, relief evident in his multi-voiced shout.
"What are you doing here?!" Ochaco gasped, pushing herself to her feet.
Sato didn't turn; his gaze still fixed on the approaching horde. He popped another sugar cube into his mouth, crunching it with determination.
"I couldn't just sit up there and do nothing," he said, his voice underlining a deeper rumble. "You looked like you needed some muscle." He cracked his neck. "And I'm it."
A massive, hulking goon, a veritable mountain of muscle, charged him with a roar. Sato didn't flinch. He bent his knees, got his center of gravity low, and as the giant reached him, he executed a perfect form tackle, hoisting the man onto his shoulders with a grunt of immense strain.
"And I'm… returning… to sender!" he roared, and with a herculean heave, he launched the massive villain bodily into the group advancing on Sero and Ochaco, bowling them over like pins.
He didn't stop. He saw two villains momentarily distracted by the flying human projectile. Sato took two running steps and nose-dived into them, leading with a hardened shoulder. The impact was sickening. He then grabbed their dazed bodies and, using them as living clubs, swung them in a wide arc, battering back another group that tried to flank Shoji.
From his podium near the fountain, Shigaraki let out a dry, rasping chuckle. "Heh. Not bad. Their stats are higher than I thought. They're actually putting up a fight." His red eyes gleamed. "But it's still just pointless grinding. The EXP is trash."
That was the final straw for Ochaco. The casual dismissal, the mocking tone while Aizawa lay dying; it snapped something inside her.
"FIGHT ME, YOU COWARD!" she screamed, her voice cracking with the force of her rage. "Stop standing there on your high horse and FIGHT!"
Shigaraki's chuckle died. The air grew colder. He slowly pulled his hands from his pockets. His voice was dangerously quiet.
"Fine." The word was a whisper that carried across the plaza. "Make me."
With a cry of pure fury, Ochaco charged again. This time, she was ready for Kurogiri. As the mist began to coalesce in front of her, she feinted left, then used a small, weightless hop to change her trajectory to the right, sliding under the forming portal and bursting through the other side.
Kurogiri's yellow eyes widened in genuine surprise. "Oh?"
He moved to intercept again, a new warp gate opening to swallow her whole.
"Kurogiri, stop," Shigaraki commanded, his voice laced with sudden interest. He was looking at Ochaco, really looking at her. At the fire in her eyes. "I want to see what she can do."
Ochaco didn't hesitate. She launched a flurry of attacks; a jab, a cross, a roundhouse kick. She was untrained, wild, but fueled by an adrenaline that made her fast.
Shigaraki didn't block. He weaved. His movements were unnervingly agile, a lazy, contemptuous dance. His hands remained at his sides as he leaned back to avoid a punch, sidestepped a kick as his red eyes tracked her every move with bored precision. It was like trying to hit smoke (He is agile and quite skill even as shown in season 01 of MHA).
Then, in the middle of her combo, his hand shot out. It wasn't a punch. It was a grab. His fingers, all five, closed around the fabric of her forearm.
There was no loud noise. Just a quiet, horrifying crunch-crinkle.
Ochaco watched in petrified disbelief as the sturdy material of her hero costume glove, from her wrist to her knuckles, disintegrated into fine, gray dust. His touch evaporated it, leaving her skin exposed and terrifyingly vulnerable. He released her, and she stumbled back while clutching her arm, her breath catching in her throat. The reality of his power, of how close she had just come to having her entire arm erased, finally, truly dawned on her.
Shigaraki shook the dust from his fingers, the particles drifting to the ground like ash.
"Fine, then," he said, his voice dropping into a deadly serious monotone. "I'll play your game, brat." He raised his hand, all five fingers splayed. "It's called tag."
His red eyes locked onto her. "You're it."
He lunged. It wasn't a lazy dodge this time. It was a predator's strike, his decay-tipped fingers reaching for her face.
"URARAKA!" Sato roared, seeing her peril. He powered forward, intending to tackle Shigaraki away.
He never got close.
"I think not," Kurogiri intoned, his pride still stung from being outmaneuvered by a child. A warp gate opened directly in Sato's path. The muscular teen poured all his momentum into a punch that flew straight into the purple void and was spat out behind him, throwing him completely off balance. Another portal opened beneath his feet, and he dropped several inches, his ankle twisting with a painful snap. Kurogiri would not be humiliated again.
While this happened, Sero and Shoji had used the distraction to fight their way to Aizawa's side.
"We have to get him out of here!" Sero yelled, firing tape to bind the teacher's broken arm to his chest in a makeshift sling.
"On three!" Shoji commanded, duplicating two extra arms to gently lift their unconscious teacher. "One… two…"
…They never got to three.
A new group of villains, fresh and grinning, stepped out of the shadows, surrounding the two students and their helpless burden. One of them, a man with metallic teeth, licked his lips.
"Leaving so soon?" he sneered. "But we still want to play."
Back in the center, Ochaco stared into the face of death as Shigaraki's hand descended. It seemed that time had slowed down, her life instinctively flashing before her eyes. She was out of tricks, out of space, and out of hope. The game was over, and she had lost.
_________________
Landslide zone…
The once isolated joint meant for facilitating heroes-in-training was a symphony of destruction, a relentless, grinding cacophony of shifting earth and shattering stone. For Shoto and Momo, it was a cage, and the walls were closing in.
The latest controlled avalanche had just subsided, leaving a fresh layer of dust and debris. Standing amidst the chaos was their primary tormentor: a mountain of a man they'd dubbed 'Boulder,' his skin the color and texture of granite, his laugh a grating rumble.
"Is that all, little hero?" Boulder taunted, hefting a chunk of concrete the size of a refrigerator. "I was expecting more from the great Endeavor's kid!"
With a grunt, he hurled the massive projectile. Shoto didn't flinch. A wall of ice erupted from the ground, intercepting the rock with a shattering crunch. Ice shards sprayed through the air, glittering like diamond shards.
"Your father would have melted that to slag by now!" the villain roared, already ripping another boulder from the unstable cliff face. "He wouldn't be hiding behind pretty little ice sculptures!"
A muscle in Shoto's jaw twitched. The name, the comparison; it was a needle expertly driven into his psyche. "Don't." he warned, his voice dangerously low.
"Don't what? Speak the truth?" Boulder laughed, launching the second boulder. "He'd be ashamed to see you fighting with one arm tied behind your back!"
Rage; cold and sharp; lanced through Shoto's veins. The careful control he'd maintained shattered. "SHUT UP!"
He slammed his right foot down, not to defend, but to attack. A jagged spear of ice, sharp enough to pierce steel, shot across the zone, aimed directly at the villain's chest.
Boulder didn't dodge. He met it head-on, crossing his massive, rock-covered forearms. The ice spear struck with the force of a cannonball, embedding itself deep, but it didn't pierce. With a guttural roar, the villain clenched his fists, the muscles in his arms bulging. The ice around them splintered, then exploded outwards in a cloud of frost.
"Pathetic!" he spat, just as another deep rumble echoed from above.
Shoto's eyes snapped upwards. Another wave of debris was raining down; a deliberate trigger from the villains on the ridge. He was forced to abandon his assault, diving and weaving, using smaller, quicker bursts of ice to deflect deadly chunks of rubble.
Boulder, however, stood his ground. The rocks and boulders that pelted him didn't cause harm…they adhered to him. He absorbed the debris, his form growing larger, more massive, his body becoming a walking landslide.
"Why do you think they put me here, you idiot boy?!" he bellowed, his voice now echoing from within a helmet of stone. "This is my jam! I am the mountain!"
"Todoroki-san!" Momo cried out from behind a shaky barricade she'd created, her face pale with exhaustion and fear. She was ready to create something, anything, to help.
"Stay back, Yaoyorozu!" Shoto commanded, his breath misting in the suddenly frigid air. He didn't look at her, his mismatched eyes fixed on the growing behemoth. A tell-tale numbness was beginning to creep up his right arm, the skin taking on a worrying, pale blue hue.
Frostbite. He was pushing his limit.
The rock-covered villain took a ground-shaking step forward. "That all you got, half-and-half? That weak-side ice? I heard you had another quirk. A fire quirk. Why not use it? Scared you'll burn your pretty face?"
Shoto's blood ran cold, a different kind of chill than his ice could ever produce.
How does he know?
The agitation was there, a flicker of panic in his heterochromatic eyes, but he masked it with a veneer of icy contempt. "Even if I had such a thing," he lied, his voice flat, "I wouldn't waste it on the likes of you."
"…A pity," Boulder rumbled, his stony fist clenching. "Then you'll just have to die cold."
The fight became a brutal, one-sided rout. Shoto was on the defensive, his ice barriers shattered almost as soon as they formed, his mobility was also limited by the treacherous, shifting ground. He was being cornered against an unstable rock face.
But Shoto Todoroki was a prodigy for a reason. Even in desperation, his mind was a tactical engine.
The guy looked like he prided too much on his quirk…but there was always a weakness to any quirk no matter how powerful it seems.
"Your quirk," Shoto panted, dodging a fist that cratered the ground where he'd stood. "You can manipulate earth, but only loose stone and debris, right? You can't affect the bedrock."
"So what if I can?!" the villain boomed, overconfident. "I've got all the ammunition I need!"
A faint, almost imperceptible smirk touched Shoto's lips. "Thanks…That's all I needed."
Another avalanche was triggered from above. This time, instead of dodging, Shoto turned his power upwards. He didn't try to stop the avalanche; he claimed it. A massive wave of frost shot from his palm, flash-freezing the entire tumbling cascade of rock and dirt into a single, monolithic wave of ice.
Boulder's eyes widened in confusion, then horror. He tried to absorb the falling mass, but his quirk slid uselessly off the slick, frozen surface. The iced debris was no longer 'earth' he could control.
"NO! You damn cheater!" he roared, forced to use his brute strength to try and hold back the frozen tidal wave.
It was the opening Momo needed. Despite her fatigue, she concentrated on her arm, creating a sturdy, metallic trip wire that sprang up just behind the villain's heel. As he strained against the ice, he stumbled backward, his footing lost. With a final, desperate shove from Shoto's ice, the massive villain was sent toppling over the edge of the chasm, his enraged scream cutting off with a definitive, distant THUD from the landslide below. Shoto immediately sent another blast of ice over the edge, encasing the fallen foe for good measure.
Unfortunately, the two students had no time to celebrate. The ground shuddered violently again. This avalanche was bigger. There was no dodging. They were exposed.
"We can't keep doing this," Shoto stated, his voice grim. He looked up towards the ridge, where the silhouettes of the villains with their seismic devices were barely visible. "I'm ending this at the source."
"I'm coming with you," Momo insisted, pushing herself to her feet, though her legs trembled.
"No," Shoto said, his tone leaving no room for argument. "You're exhausted. All I need is a shield. A big one."
Understanding dawned on Momo's face. She nodded; her brow furrowed in concentration. From her back, a large, round, steel shield; a brutish, Spartan-like implement; began to form, emerging with a metallic groan. Though this had resulted to her clothing tearing from the massive creation of hers, she had to cover herself up quickly.
"Thanks," Shoto said, grabbing it…Then immediately turned his head away, avoid looking at Momo's predicament.
"Your-Uh…"
"Don't worry about me, I can create another cloth, just go!"
Shoto nodded then turned to the cliff face, coated his feet in ice as well as the surrounding gorund, and propelled himself upwards, skating on a ramp of his own creation straight towards the enemy's nest.
The ascent was a blur. He used the shield to batter aside two surprised lookouts, landing amidst the group of villains manning the seismic charges. They scattered, but he was a whirlwind of controlled fury, using the shield and precise blasts of ice to neutralize them before they could regroup.
As the last goon fell, two figures stepped out from behind a large generator. One was enormous, casually throwing off his cloak to reveal a battle-hungry grin beneath a bird like mask. The other, smaller and shrouded, watched with palpable disdain.
"Well, well," the cloaked scout sneered, his voice raspy. "Endeavor's spawn. That was quite the impressive little climb. You could have solved this whole problem minutes ago if you weren't so busy half-assing it."
The large man, Rappa, cracked his knuckles with a sound like gunshots. "Yeah, real flashy! But where's the other one? The girl? I wanna fight her, too! Make it a party!"
Shoto's glare was pure venom. "This madness ends now," he declared, raising his right hand, frost gathering.
He never got the chance to attack. A glob of thick, translucent adhesive shot from the shadows, splattering across his torso and arms, pinning them to his sides. He was stuck fast.
"Hey!" Rappa complained, turning to a grinning, slime-covered villain. "That's a cheap shot! Coulda' let the kid throw the first punch!"
The scout looked at Shoto with utter contempt as the boy struggled. Shoto tried to encase the substance in ice to shatter it, but the adhesive seemed to have a nullifying property; the ice formed, then instantly melted away into water, leaving him even more soaked and trapped.
"I've had enough of this," the scout spat. "Finish him."
The remaining goons, emboldened, closed in with cruel smiles.
As Shoto thrashed against the unyielding goo, a memory, sharp and suffocating, clawed its way up from the depths of his mind.
He was a child, trapped not in adhesive, but in a training room of his own ice. Endeavor stood over him, his face a mask of fury and disappointment.
"Use your left side, Shoto!" his father boomed. "Melt your way out! This weakness is unacceptable!"
The young Shoto tried, a pathetic, flickering flame sputtering from his left hand, barely managing to create a puddle. The ice held fast.
Endeavor's shadow fell over him, blocking the light. "Is this it?" he snarled, his voice dripping with contempt. "Is this the power that will surpass All Might? A flickering candle in the dark? You are a failure if you cannot master the gift I gave you!"
The memory was a brand, searing his soul.
"SHUT UP!" Shoto screamed, the past and present merging into a single, agonizing point of failure.
And something inside him broke.
A wave of heat, violent and uncontrolled, erupted from his left side. It wasn't a focused flame; it was an explosion of pure, repressed rage. A torrent of fire roared outwards, so bright and hot it forced the advancing goons to stumble back, shielding their faces. The adhesive encasing him sizzled, bubbled, and began to melt, its chemical structure breaking down under the extreme heat.
He thrashed harder, fueled by a fury he hadn't allowed himself to feel in years. With a final, guttural roar, the substance gave way, and he was free.
He didn't think. He just acted. A blast of fire sent one villain flying. A jagged spike of ice impaled the leg of another. He was a maelstrom of both elements, lashing out indiscriminately, not even realizing the left side of his body was wreathed in flames. The goons who had been so confident moments before now scrambled away in terror, realizing they had unleashed something far beyond their understanding.
Rappa's grin widened into something ecstatic. He threw his head back and laughed. "YES! NOW THAT'S MORE LIKE IT!" He pounded his fists together. "You and me, kid, we're gonna have a BLAST!"
But as Rappa took a step forward, the scout moved faster. He flanked Shoto, staying at a distance, and yelled, "Rappa, STAND DOWN!"
Shoto, panting, his mind clearing for a split second, saw the man bring a small, pulsing orange vial to his own neck. He pressed an injector. There was a faint hiss.
The scout's body shuddered. Veins around his neck glowed with an ominous orange light, pulsing like lava. A wisp of black, acrid smoke escaped his lips. His single visible eye, now burning with a hateful orange glow, locked onto Shoto.
"This," the scout rasped, his voice now distorted, layered with a deeper, more bestial growl, "is my damn fight."
In that moment, Shoto saw it clearly; the twisted, burnt scar that covered the left side of the man's jaw and crawled up towards his eye, a testament to some past, agonizing encounter with fire.
He stood poised, a vessel of contained violence, and Shoto Todoroki, standing between him and a battle-thirsty Rappa, was completely alone.
________________
Fire zone…
This place had become a special kind of hell. The air itself was a physical opponent, searing the lungs with every gasping breath. Acrid smoke stung the eyes, and the constant, low roar of artificial flames was a soundtrack to despair. In this inferno, three figures moved like ghosts, clinging to the slender hope of survival.
Tokoyami, his once-proud plumage now matted with soot and sweat, dragged the unconscious form of a villain by the collar. The fight had been a brutal, silent affair; a desperate scramble in the lee of a burning wreck where Tokoyami's martial prowess had barely triumphed over a thug with a pyrokinesis quirk. It had taken too long, each second a torment under the oppressive heat. With a final heave, he stripped the villain of his heavy, heat-resistant suit, a prize won through pain.
Nearby, Koda trembled, his large frame hunched protectively. He wasn't a fighter; his heart was a sanctuary, not a fortress. His powerful arms were not for striking, but for carrying, and he held a weakened Tsuyu with a gentleness that belied the chaos around them. Tokoyami's cloak was wrapped around her, a meager shield against the dehydrating air. Her skin, usually glistening and damp, was dangerously dry and pale, her long tongue hanging limply from her mouth.
"Dark Shadow…" Tokoyami rasped, his voice raw. He clenched his fist, focusing. A wisp of black energy flickered at his side, but it was a pitiful thing, small and shivering. A pained chirp, like a dying bird, escaped it before it dissolved back into his chest. The light, the fire…it was poison. His greatest strength was crippled, leaving him feeling horrifically exposed.
Koda, his eyes wide with panic, tapped Tokoyami's shoulder and pointed a shaking finger towards a skeletal skyscraper, one of the zone's mock-city structures. Its lower floors seemed intact, a potential sanctuary from the open furnace of the streets.
Hope, fragile and desperate, flickered in Tokoyami's red eyes. "There. Go."
They moved as one, a stumbling, wounded unit. Reaching the building, they found the main doors chained shut. With a grunt of effort, Tokoyami wedged the barrel of the stolen weapon; a heavy, rifle-like concussion blaster; into the chains and leveraged his weight. Metal groaned and snapped, the doors swinging inward to reveal a dark, dusty lobby. They slipped inside, the relative coolness a shocking relief, unaware that a predator, drawn by their struggle, had slithered in after them.
The lobby was a tomb of broken furniture and shattered glass. Koda gently laid Tsuyu against a crumbling pillar, her breath a shallow rasp. Tokoyami stood guard at the tinted window, watching the silhouettes of villains stalk past, their forms distorted by the heat haze and smoked glass. His mind, usually a bastion of stoic poetry, churned with dark thoughts.
This was no random assault. They knew our weaknesses. They herded us here, into this elemental prison.
His gaze drifted to his incapacitated friends.
Are the others enduring this same hell? Is Aizawa-sensei holding the line? Has All Might even been summoned? Or are we… truly alone?
He pushed the thoughts aside, focusing on the immediate. He set the heavy fire suit down and, with careful hands, managed to fit the helmet over Tsuyu's head. The built-in respirator hissed to life, and she took a deep, shuddering breath, her large eyes blinking open, clearer now.
"Ribbit… Tokoyami? Where…?"
"We have found temporary refuge," he explained, his voice low and grave. He recounted their flight, the fight for the suit, their narrow escape. As he spoke, a small, trembling Dark Shadow peeked out from his torso, no larger than a raven. It clutched at Tokoyami's arm, its usual bravado replaced by a primal fear of the flames outside.
"It's alright, my friend," Tokoyami murmured, stroking the shadowy form. "The light cannot reach us here."
Tsuyu, her strength returning slightly, croaked, "I remember… ribbit… seeing a control panel. Near the central generator. If we can get to it… maybe we can shut this whole zone down."
It was a spark of a plan. Tokoyami and Koda listened, but Tokoyami's expression remained grim. "A sound strategy, Tsuyu. But the path is fraught with peril. The fire weakens you and cripples my darkest self. We must be—"
He was interrupted by a sharp, terrified gasp from Koda.
The large boy was staring into the dark recesses of the lobby, his face a mask of pure horror. At first, there was nothing. Then, the very air seemed to ripple. A figure materialized from the shadows, its skin a chameleonic canvas that shifted to match the dusty gloom behind it. It was a heteromorph, its eyes wide with manic glee, and in its hand, a long, wicked butcher knife gleamed in a sliver of light from the window.
It moved with a psychotic speed, lunging forward with a guttural shriek, the knife aimed straight for Koda's back.
"LOOK OUT!" Tokoyami roared.
He shoved Koda aside and yanked Tsuyu out of the path, the knife whistling through the air where they had just been. The bird-headed hero snatched up the concussion blaster, using it as a clumsy club to parry the wild, hacking swings of the manic goon.
"BIRDIE LUNCH!!!"
Clang! Clang! Sparks flew. Tokoyami was a skilled fighter, but his opponent was a whirlwind of insane energy, unencumbered by fear or reason. The blaster was heavy, unwieldy in close quarters.
In a sudden, brutal feint, the goon dropped low and then surged upward. The butcher knife, honed to a razor's edge, swept in a savage arc.
There was a wet, chopping sound.
Tokoyami cried out, stumbling back. His left arm, from the elbow down, was gone. It lay on the dusty floor, fingers still twitching. A geyser of crimson painted the wall behind him. The world swam, a dizzying carousel of pain and disbelief. He collapsed to his knees, clutching the horrific stump, his vision tunneling.
Through the roaring in his ears, he heard a new sound. A piercing, agonized cry that was not his own.
He forced his head up.
The camouflaged villain stood over Koji Koda. The gentle giant, who had only ever wanted to help, who had carried their friend to safety, now had the long, bloody knife buried to the hilt in his chest. He looked down at the protruding handle with an expression of profound, innocent surprise, before his eyes rolled back and he slumped to the ground, motionless.
Something in Fumikage Tokoyami shattered.
The carefully constructed walls of his control, his reverence for the darkness, his stoic resolve…it all crumbled into dust. A failure. He had failed to protect them. Tsuyu was weakened, Koda was… was he…?
NO.
A pressure, vast and ancient and infinitely malevolent, exploded from within him. It was not a summoning. It was a rupture.
No, No, No, No, NO, NOO, NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!
The lobby plunged into an unnatural twilight as every shadow was violently sucked towards Tokoyami. The air grew cold, the very light seeming to die. From his back, Dark Shadow erupted, but it was not the familiar, if weakened, companion. This was a thing of nightmare.
It was massive, its form bloated and chaotic, tearing through the ceiling of the lobby as it grew. Its giant pair of eyes, usually a bright gold, now burned with the hellish red of a demon's forge. It was no longer a quirk; it was a force of nature, a manifestation of Tokoyami's utter despair and rage.
The camouflaged villain, his psychotic glee finally replaced by primal terror, looked up at the abomination he had unleashed. He barely had time to scream before a claw of solidified shadow, large enough to crush a car, snatched him up.
With a bestial roar that shook the very foundations of the building, the rampaging Dark Shadow hurled the man. He became a human projectile, crashing through the tinted window in a shower of glass and landing on the street outside with a sickening, final crunch.
The other villains searching the area froze, their attention snapping to the source of the noise. Their jeers died in their throats.
The skyscraper in front of them began to tremble. Cracks spiderwebbed up its façade. Then, with a sound of tearing metal and shattering concrete, the entire top half of the building exploded outward.
And from the devastation emerged ademon.
A colossal, avian-shaped entity of pure darkness, its form wreathed in flickering tendrils of hate. Its single red eye scanned the hellscape below, and it released a roar that was not a sound, but a vacuum of hope, a promise of oblivion.
"GROOOOOOAAAAAARRRRR!!!!!"
Embedded in the center of the creature's chest, like a dark jewel in a monstrous setting, was Fumikage Tokoyami (Just felt like emphasizing his full name). His eyes were wide, unseeing, consumed by the same rage that fueled his quirk. Whisps of black energy, like tortured umbilical cords, connected him to the beast; he was the pilot of a runaway engine of destruction, desperately trying to regain a control that was already long lost.
The villains in the Fire Zone could only stare, their weapons falling from nerveless fingers. They had come to hunt students. They had not planned on awakening a god of darkness.
_________________
The sunlight in Principal Nezu's office no longer felt warm; not really; it felt accusatory. Each golden beam highlighted the dust motes dancing in the air, and to Toshinori Yagi, each one was a second lost, a moment of suffering for his students. The cheerful decor was a mockery of the dread solidifying in his gut.
His skeletal leg still would not stop its frantic, jittering dance. Tap-tap-tap-tap. It was a Morse code of desperation against the polished floor. Nezu's words about logic, fortification, and the future of society had become a distant hum, a lecture delivered from the safety of an ivory tower while a war raged in the trenches.
His eyes, sunken and shadowed, flickered to the ornate clock on the wall. The minute hand clicked into place with a sound that seemed to echo like a gong.
The hour was up.
"...and so, while Togata's record is not without its minor flaws, his potential for growth under One For All is-" Nezu was saying, his paws steepled.
"Principal Nezu."
All Might's voice cut through the explanation, quiet but firm, leaving no room for interruption. He rose to his full, gaunt height, the ill-fitting yellow suit hanging from his frame like a shroud. The tapping stopped. A profound, weary resolve had settled over him.
Nezu paused, his black beady eyes taking in the transformed posture of the man before him.
"My apologies," All Might said, his voice a gravelly rasp that held no apology whatsoever. "The hour you asked for has been given. But my duty cannot be scheduled. My students, and my colleagues, need me. Now."
He did not wait for a reply. He turned, and with a sharp intake of breath that was more a gasp of pain than power, his body swelled. Muscles erupted, fabric strained, and where the frail Toshinori Yagi stood a moment before, the towering, iconic form of the Symbol of Peace now filled the space. The sunlight gleamed off his golden hair and the sharp planes of his smile; a smile that, for the first time in a long time, did not reach his eyes.
He offered Nezu a short, sharp bow. "I'll take my leave."
Without another word, he turned and strode from the office, his footsteps silent on the plush carpet but heavy with finality. The door clicked shut behind him, leaving Nezu alone in the sudden, oppressive silence, the fateful conversation hanging unfinished in the air.
All Might moved through the halls of UA with a purpose that made the few students he passed gasp and scramble out of his way. There was no booming laugh, no reassuring catchphrase. His presence was a storm front, intense and terrifying. He burst through the main doors, the bright afternoon sun hitting his face as he descended the steps, his gaze locked on the distant, gleaming dome of the USJ.
Just a little further. Hold on. I'm coming.
He passed through the main gates, his mind already mapping the fastest route. He would take a single, mighty leap. He would land at the entrance and—
"Oof!"
Something small and unseen collided with his leg with a soft cry, bouncing off his immovable frame and tumbling to the ground.
All Might stopped, his brow furrowed. He looked down. At first, he saw nothing but the empty pathway. Then, he saw the faint impression in the gravel, the way the light bent unnaturally, and a single, floating pair of girl's school uniform gloves.
Memory flickered. The invisible girl. Class 1-A. Her name… her name…
"Hagakure?" he asked, his voice a low rumble.
A sob answered him. Then another. The gloves came up to where her face would be, and the gravel around the impression grew dark with falling tears. The invisible form trembled violently.
"Young Hagakure, are you alright?" he asked, his immense form kneeling down, his great shadow enveloping her.
The head; or the space where it was; shook frantically. "N-No… I-I'm not…" Her voice was a shattered, breathless thing, choked with panic and tears. "A-All Might… y-you have to… they… they need help! P-Please!"
The gnawing pit in All Might's stomach yawned wide open, threatening to consume him. The world seemed to slow down, the colors bleaching out. He placed a massive, gentle hand on her shoulder, feeling the tremors wracking her frame.
"Breathe, my girl," he said, his voice dropping to a forced, calming tone that belied the ice now flowing through his own veins. "Tell me. What has happened?"
The story tumbled out of Hagakure in a frantic, broken torrent. The warp gate. The villains. Hundreds of them. A man wearing hands. A mist-man. They scattered everyone. Mr. Aizawa was fighting alone. Thirteen was trying to get them out… and then… and then…
"Th-They have a m-monster!" she wailed, the memory searing her mind. "A big one! With… with dead green eyes! It… it hurt my classmates! It was so fast! And… I heard Thirteen-sensei's screaming the moment I was able to escape… and then… and then…"
She couldn't finish. She didn't have to.
The information processed in All Might's mind with the cold, brutal efficiency of a supercomputer. A coordinated attack. Overwhelming numbers. Aizawa and Thirteen outmatched. A specific, powerful villain targeting his students. His teachers, his children, were in a meat grinder.
The world came back into focus, but it was a different world. A darker one.
The last vestiges of his ever-present smile vanished. It didn't just fade; it was wiped away, replaced by a grim, hard line. The friendly crinkles around his eyes deepened into trenches of fury. The air around him began to crackle with palpable energy, the gravel at his feet trembling.
"Hagakure," he said, his voice now devoid of all warmth, a blade of honed steel. "Listen to me. Go back to the main building. Find any teacher. Tell them everything. Get help."
He rose to his full height, his shadow now looking less like that of a protector and more like that of an avenging god. The sun glinted off his clenched fists.
"I," he growled, the word a promise of violence, "will deal with this."
He didn't take a running start. He didn't make a declaration. He simply bent his knees, and the ground beneath him exploded in a crater of shattered asphalt and dirt.
With a sound that tore the sky in half, the Symbol of Peace became a golden missile, rocketing towards the Unforeseen Simulation Joint. The wind screamed in his wake, a fitting dirge for the end of his restraint.
He was notsmiling.
Chapter 19-23 + Off screen Fight scene between Void and Aizawa already available on Patreon.com/Weeb Fanthom for as low as $3.