Suddenly, a swirling, dark mist manifested in the central plaza, materializing next to Tomura Shigaraki with an almost imperceptible ripple in the air. Shigaraki, completely unfazed by its sudden appearance, merely turned his annoyed gaze towards the ethereal figure. His hands, adorned with their macabre collection, remained fixed in their positions, showing no reaction to Kurogiri's return.
"Are you done playing your little games, Kurogiri?" Shigaraki asked, his arms crossed tightly over his chest, his voice laced with palpable impatience and a hint of contempt. "Was it truly so much fun to make those pathetic little bastards of U.A. suffer through your Quirk, scattering them like dust?"
"Yes, it was quite entertaining, Shigaraki-san, but there's a problem..." Kurogiri reported, his deep, polite voice now tinged with a rare note of regret, a subtle shift from his usual unshakeable composure. "A student managed to escape from my grasp, slipping through my portals. They are currently heading towards the main U.A. building, most likely in search of reinforcements from the Pro Heroes."
"Eh? An idiot actually escaped your perfect Quirk, Kurogiri? You had one job, you black, incompetent fucking Mist!" Shigaraki exclaimed, his voice rising in a whiny, furious crescendo. He began frantically scratching the back of his head, his fingers digging into his skin, a desperate self-soothing gesture. "This entire game is over for us, ruined because of your failure! And we haven't even met the conditions for the Final Boss to appear in this pathetic dungeon..." His frustration was boiling over, the carefully laid plans crumbling.
"We have company, Shigaraki," a cold, guttural voice interrupted, cutting through Shigaraki's angry rant. Reaper, the masked figure of death, reported, his head slowly turning towards the two students who were now rapidly approaching the central plaza, their forms becoming clearer amidst the chaos. "I have permission to—"
"Do whatever you want with them, I don't care at this point. We'll simply play a little more before the Pros inevitably show up," Shigaraki snapped, his hand ceasing its frantic scratching. He gave a curt, dismissive nod to Reaper, his eyes hardening with a detached malevolence. "I don't give a damn what you do; this party is already spoiled beyond repair." His focus had shifted from the grand scheme to mere destructive recreation.
Reaper offered a silent, almost imperceptible nod in response. Without another word, his terrifying form began to dematerialize into a jet-black mist, swirling and coalescing before rushing with predatory speed towards the unsuspecting students, who were still unaware of the imminent, deadly threat that was approaching them.
Lena and Kyoka, having successfully navigated the treacherous Landslide Zone and agreed upon their new, albeit risky, strategy, had just arrived at the perimeter of the Central Zone. The scene before them was a chilling tableau of Eraser Head's solitary prowess. Numerous unconscious and incapacitated bodies of low-ranking Villains were strewn across the ground, testament to their teacher's fierce, relentless fighting. Eraser Head himself could be seen in the distance, hunched over, taking a rare moment to catch his breath, his eyes fixed intently on the ominous figure of Shigaraki. He was a whirlwind of controlled chaos, a one-man army against overwhelming odds.
Kyoka let out a low whistle of genuine admiration, her earphone Jacks twitching subtly. "Looks like Aizawa-sensei has been incredibly busy, hasn't he? He's really cleaned house."
"...I think he just moved up a notch, perhaps even two, on my personal respect scale," Lena murmured, her voice filled with a mixture of awe and genuine puzzlement as she observed Aizawa's grim effectiveness. The contrast between his perpetually tired demeanor and his sudden, brutal efficiency was stark. "Bitter teacher evolves to: Bitter teacher who can decisively kick your ass and probably expel you for looking at him funny."
Kyoka simply shook her head, a slight smile playing on her lips, amused by Lena's ridiculously accurate, yet equally ridiculous, new designation for their homeroom teacher. "And how—"
"You shouldn't be so easily distracted, young hero," a cold, deep voice suddenly resonated directly into Kyoka's ear, unnervingly close, cutting her off midsentence. The unexpected proximity of the voice sent a jolt of ice through her veins.
Kyoka froze instantly, her body stiffening with profound shock. The sensation was terrifying, as if Death itself had suddenly fixed its chilling gaze upon her, its cold breath ghosting against her neck. Her earphone Jacks instinctively recoiled.
Lena, reacting with lightning speed, immediately used an 'Acceleration' to burst away from their current position, pulling Kyoka along with her, away from the mysterious black mist that had materialized from thin air. The sudden burst of speed left a sky-blue blur in their wake.
Lena's heart began to pound erratically in her chest, a frantic drumbeat of primal fear, as she watched the terrifying figure of the Grim Reaper himself begin to form out of the swirling mist, coalescing into flesh and blood. He was clad in an elegant, yet ominously dark, black robe that draped fluidly around his entire back, billowing slightly with an unseen energy. On his chest, he appeared to be wearing a type of black, intricately designed armor, embellished with subtle red details that hinted at concealed power. His legs were encased in sleek, metallic boots, hinting at both protection and speed.
But the most terrifying, most unsettling aspect of all was his mask, which appeared to be meticulously crafted from real bone, a chillingly realistic representation of a human skull, complete with hollow eye sockets that seemed to stare into one's very soul.
His entire figure was intimidating, radiating an aura of absolute, crushing power. It was like looking Death squarely in the eye.
Only looking Death in the eye.
You knew, with an absolute, undeniable certainty, that you were already dead.
Lena shuddered slightly, a cold tremor running down her spine at the terrifying thought, before she forced a nervous, somewhat shaky smile onto her face. "Oh, I don't recall explicitly asking for Death to make a house call at U.A. today, thank you very much." Her attempt at levity was thin, almost transparent, a desperate mask over her fear.
"Reaper... that's the name that will swiftly claim your heads," Reaper replied, his voice a low, guttural rumble that seemed to vibrate from within the very mask itself. His masked gaze, unblinking, fixed intently on Kyoka, as he began to stride purposefully towards the girls, his movements unnervingly silent and swift.
Lena, without hesitation, used an 'Acceleration' to instantly appear next to Reaper, her body a blur of sky blue. Her foot was already raised, poised to deliver a powerful kick to his stomach. "Take that, you grim bastard!"
But Reaper, with an almost supernatural ease that defied Lena's enhanced speed, simply reached out and grabbed her foot as if it were nothing more than a minor annoyance, his grip impossibly strong. Before Lena could even process the shocking counter, he delivered a brutal, precise punch directly to her face. The impact was immediate and devastating, shattering her glasses into countless tiny fragments that embedded themselves painfully in her face. "AAAGHH!!!" Lena screamed, her voice a raw, agonizing sound.
Lena fell backward, clutching her face in unbearable pain, the sharp shards digging into her skin. She couldn't stop screaming, the sound tearing from her throat, and hot tears streamed uncontrollably down her face, mingling with the blood. "UUGHHAA!!!"
Reaper never once took his glowing eyes off Kyoka, his attention completely fixed on her as he continued his relentless advance, utterly oblivious to Lena's agonizing screams and the brutal pain he had just inflicted. His focus was chillingly singular.
Kyoka's face paled further, draining of all color as she instinctively took a hurried step back. Desperate, she unleashed her earphone Jacks, sending them out towards the mysterious opponent, hoping against hope to stun him with a powerful sonic blast.
But her hope was in vain, a futile, desperate gamble. Reaper, with unnerving precision, simply grabbed her Jacks with his bare hand, his grip crushing, and pulled them hard, causing Kyoka a terrible, searing pain that shot through her ears and down her spine. The sudden tug also forcibly dragged her closer to him, closing the distance between them.
Reaper looked down at her as if she were nothing more than discarded trash, his masked gaze utterly devoid of emotion, before he delivered a brutally hard knee strike directly to her stomach. The blow left her gasping, completely devoid of air in her lungs, before he followed up with a thunderous, concussive kick to her back that sent her flying several meters away, her body tumbling uncontrollably.
Reaper approached the spot where he had thrown Kyoka. The latter was now sobbing uncontrollably in pain, her body wracked with tremors, as she watched the terrifying figure of Death itself stare at her, unmoving, its presence overwhelming her. She succumbed completely to paralyzing panic, her will shattered. "...p-please... sniff..." she whispered, her voice barely audible through her sobs.
Reaper, seemingly intent on finishing the job, just bowed slightly, an eerie, deliberate motion, as he reached into his robe to pull out—
... Lena, despite the excruciating pain still throbbing in her face, finally forced her eyes open. Her blurry vision focused on Kyoka, who lay sobbing on the ground, a broken, terrified mess.
"Kyoka!!" Lena screamed, a fresh wave of primal fury surging through her, overriding the pain.
Ignoring the blinding agony in her face and the broken shards of her glasses, Lena utilized 'Recoil,' swiftly pulling herself back onto her feet. With a furious roar, she launched a powerful kick directly at Reaper, who simply dodged effortlessly to the side, a blur of black against the shattered plaza. "Get away from her, you bastard!!!"
Turning his masked gaze back to Lena, Reaper's voice was a low, taunting challenge. "And what precisely are you going to do about it, little hero?" His words were a deliberate provocation, designed to ignite Lena's impulsive fury and compel her to attack him head-on.
And it worked, precisely as he intended. Lena, consumed by unadulterated rage, immediately used 'Acceleration' again, charging at Reaper with a furious, precise kick aimed directly at his masked face. She was determined to make him pay.
But...
"Predictable," Reaper stated, his voice flat, completely devoid of surprise, as he effortlessly dodged Lena's lightning-fast kick. His movements were fluid, almost preternatural, as if he knew her every move before she even made it. He seemed to effortlessly weave through her attacks.
Lena tried again, her frustration mounting. She unleashed a relentless barrage, combining furious fists, powerful kicks, and anything else she could think of, her movements a chaotic blur of speed and raw aggression.
But Reaper continued to dodge each and every one of them, his body a shadowy, elusive target. Sometimes, he would even nonchalantly hit Lena back, mocking her efforts with deliberate, measured blows that, while not immediately debilitating, chipped away at her resolve and energy.
"Why... why can't... I hit you!" Lena shouted in a guttural cry of pure frustration, her voice ragged. She was breathing heavily, her body visibly beaten in several places, bruised and battered. It seemed she could barely stand upright, trembling from the accumulated blows, yet her determination burned fiercely. "Son of a bitch!"
Reaper, seemingly tired of this prolonged cat-and-mouse game, finally moved with a speed that surpassed anything Lena had seen from him thus far. In a flash, he was no longer simply dodging; he closed the distance in an instant, appearing directly in front of her.
He delivered a brutally hard fist directly across her chest, a concussive blow that sent her flying backward, sprawling several meters away, her body hitting the ground with a sickening thud. The impact left her breathless, the air forced from her lungs.
"...You possess a rather interesting Quirk, little hero... I'm quite sure the Witch will absolutely adore it..." Reaper muttered under his breath, a chilling, almost satisfied hum escaping him as he nodded to himself, a new, sinister objective forming in his mind. "Let's get this over with—"
"TAKE THIS, MOTHERFUCKER!" A new voice suddenly roared from behind Reaper, filled with a desperate, furious energy.
A large, concussive blast of sound, raw and powerful, shot forth and struck Reaper directly. Due to the immense vibration generated by the attack, his body instinctively dematerialized, transforming into a swirling, shadowy mist that hung momentarily in the air. He had been forced to become intangible.
"But first, let's take care of the annoying little mosquito who dares to interrupt me..." Reaper's voice, cold and dangerous, emanated from the mist.
Kyoka continued to play the guitar with her eyes closed, completely focused, confident that her sonic blasts could effectively keep Reaper at bay. She remained unaware that directly behind her, a jet-black mist was slowly, silently beginning to reappear, coalescing back into the terrifying form of Reaper.
... Lena slowly, agonizingly, forced herself upright. Her body protested with every muscle fiber, screaming from the powerful, concussive blow she had just received from Reaper. She swayed unsteadily, her legs feeling like lead, threatening to buckle beneath her. Her vision, already blurred from the impact and the shattered remains of her glasses, swam at the edges, a dizzying, disorienting haze. The world spun precariously around her, a distorted, painful reality.
She took a deep, ragged breath, the air burning in her lungs, and looked down at the shattered ground of the central plaza. Her eyes, filled with a profound weariness, scanned the scene of chaos and destruction. Her mind, battered and struggling, grappled to process the overwhelming, brutal reality of the situation: the unconscious villains, the lingering smoke, the chilling presence of Reaper.
And then, suddenly, without warning, a colossal wave of paralyzing panic and profound, all-consuming fear violently crashed over her, tackling her with an unseen force, crushing her very being under its suffocating weight. It was a familiar terror, yet amplified, sharpened by the raw immediacy of death.
"NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!" The desperate words were torn from her throat, a guttural, primal cry of terror that echoed only in her mind, unheard by anyone else.
Her breathing became incredibly unsteady, shallow, ragged gasps for air that failed to fill her lungs. Her knees buckled uncontrollably beneath her, threatening to give way entirely. Her blood felt as if it had frozen solid in her veins, replaced by an icy, chilling terror that seeped into every cell. Her heart hammered against her ribs, pounding with an unbearable, suffocating fear that threatened to burst from her chest. Her mind, utterly overwhelmed, filled with a blinding, all-consuming panic that left no room for rational thought.
Suddenly, terrifyingly, she was no longer in the USJ, no longer in the heart of the frantic battle. The chaotic sounds of combat, the screams, the explosions – all vanished. She was back. Back in the capsule. Her mind, disoriented and reeling, had regressed to the suffocating prison of her past trauma.
Alone. Utterly and terrifyingly alone.
"STOP! STOP! PLEASE, STOP!" she screamed, the sound raw and desperate, tearing from her very soul, a futile plea against the invisible walls of her mental prison.
Abandoned. Abandoned and utterly helpless.
"AGHAAHH!!!" A guttural cry of pure anguish erupted from her, a sound of absolute despair.
Lost— Lost in the void of time, lost in the depths of her own mind.
Suddenly, a loud, piercing melody, a triumphant, almost defiant sound, tore through the suffocating darkness of her panic. It was a clear, resonant note, a familiar beacon of hope. It pulled her back violently, almost forcefully, to the present world, shattering the illusion of the capsule. It was Kyoka's guitar, a lifeline in the storm of her mind.
Lena's eyes snapped open, looking up. Her gaze, however, was beginning to look distorted, as if reality itself was bending and warping around her, shimmering with an unseen energy. The world twisted and warped with her perception.
She watched in what felt like slow motion as a swirling mist, chillingly familiar, materialized directly behind Kyoka, coalescing rapidly into the terrifying, imposing form of Reaper. His dark, elegant robe billowed around him, his skeletal mask unblinking. From within his shadowy robe, with a practiced, fluid motion, he pulled out a long-barreled shotgun, raising it slowly, aiming it with cold, deliberate precision directly for Kyoka's head. The action was devoid of hesitation, a clear intent to kill.
"Kyoka!" Lena screamed, her voice a desperate, primal cry of warning and terror, even as her own existence felt as if it were being violently lost, unraveling in the chaotic currents of time. Her body trembled uncontrollably, wracked with the strain of a power she barely understood, a power suddenly surging within her, far beyond her conscious control.
For Lena, in that terrifying, stretched-out moment, it was as if the world had abruptly, completely stopped. Time itself seemed to have frozen, suspended in a horrifying, silent tableau, every particle of dust, every breath, held motionless.
Her eyes, which were usually a vibrant electric green, now burned with an unnatural, piercing light blue, glowing with an intense, otherworldly energy that pulsed with raw, unbridled power.
Tiny, crackling blue rays, like miniature lightning bolts, began to emanate uncontrollably from her entire body, arcing and sparking wildly around her, a visible, almost violent, manifestation of the chaotic Entropic energy surging within her, tearing through the fabric of space-time.
And before time, before reality, before the very laws of physics truly knew what was happening, before Reaper could pull the trigger, before Kyoka could even register the threat—
Lena was moving.
She was moving at a speed that defied the very concept of time itself, shattering its rigid confines, breaking through its immutable boundaries. It was a speed that bent causality, a movement beyond comprehension.
With every impossible, instantaneous step, it seemed that her surroundings spontaneously changed, shattered into a million fragments, and were then eternally remade around her, a dizzying, kaleidoscopic blur of impossible realities flashing past her eyes, each one a fleeting glimpse into a different temporal possibility:
An abandoned USJ, its ruins silent and desolate, echoing with ghostly whispers. A vibrant meadow of blooming flowers under a serene, endless sky. A sprawling, futuristic city, its towering skyscrapers gleaming with advanced, alien technology. A desolate field, engulfed in raging, green flames that danced and consumed. A lush, dense jungle, teeming with unseen life and ancient secrets. A boundless, shimmering ocean, its mighty waves crashing in an endless, rhythmic roar.
An infinite tapestry of existence, fleeting and ever-changing.
An... .. .
<&$1(&5(ñ&% / ErRRoorR / 73618468 ymab>
After an unknown, immeasurable span of subjective time – whether it was milliseconds or eons, Lena could not tell – her distorted, hyper-accelerated journey finally reached its incomprehensible goal. Her being, stretched across realities, finally converged.
Her consciousness, sharp and focused for the first time since the surge, registered a single, critical moment: a short girl with meticulously coiffed black hair, dressed like a blend between a punk rocker and a civilian, standing frozen, caught directly in the path of a point-blank shotgun blast. It was Kyoka, but not quite her Kyoka. The details were different, yet the essence was unmistakable.
Without hesitation, Lena, compelled by an instinct deeper than memory, forcefully pushed this version of the girl away, out of harm's reach, and, with an act of profound, selfless sacrifice, took her place directly in the line of the shotgun's lethal trajectory.
After making this spontaneous, life-altering decision, Lena couldn't help but wonder, even in that compressed moment: Who was that girl she had just saved? Why did she feel such an overwhelming, innate desire to protect her, a stranger from a blurred reality? Why was she risking her very existence, consciously trading her life for someone she didn't know, someone who was not her Kyoka?
But a profound, undeniable feeling resonated deep within Lena's core, an inner certainty that transcended logic or reason. Something told Lena, with absolute conviction, that this was the unquestionably right decision. It was an imperative that defied all explanation.
With a soft, knowing smile, Lena closed her eyes, accepting her fate.
And then, as if a cosmic pause button had been released, everything moved again. Time, reality, causality – they all snapped back into motion, rushing forward to meet the inevitable.
BANG.