Days later, fluorescent lights hummed with strained tension in UA's underground Situation Room B. Eraserhead slumped against a reinforced wall, capture scarf coiled loosely around his neck, eyes bloodshot. The sterile air tasted of ozone and stale coffee. Across a holographic display plotting Musutafu's energy fluctuations, Nedzu perched rigidly on Present Mic's shoulder—unusual proximity betraying his agitation. Snipe's fingers drummed a restless tattoo on his pistol grip beside Cementoss's folded stone arms. Midnight gnawed her thumbnail raw. All Might's skeletal frame trembled near the sealed door, veins bulging against gaunt skin as One For All flickered weakly within him—a guttering candle against remembered suffocation. They'd felt it. That sudden, chilling hollowing-out of quirks, the terrifying silence where power *should* have roared. Recovery Girl's cane tapped sharply on metal plating. "Describe it *precisely*, Toshinori," she rasped, her voice cracking the brittle quiet. "This… absence."
All Might shuddered, clutching his ribs as phantom ice crawled through veins emptied of ember-bright strength. "Like… drowning," he choked out, sweat beading on skeletal temples. "Not airlessness. The *sea* vanishing. Half my soul… ripped away." He met Aizawa's narrowed gaze. "You?"
Eraserhead's dry voice cut through murmurs. "Quirk suppression." His knuckles whitened against the wall. "But exponentially worse. Mine requires sight and focus. This was… ambient. Absolute. Like reality itself paused." His eyes scanned Nedzu. "Analysis?"
The chimera's fur bristled. Data streams flickered across his pupils. "Correlation undeniable. The temporal epicenter aligns *precisely* with Dagobah Beach." He zoomed the hologram—a pulsing dark sphere superimposed over the glass wasteland Izuku had forged. "Energy signature remains… anomalous. Non-quirk. Non-*anything* known." Nedzu steepled tiny paws, voice dropping to a whisper that froze the room. "Preliminary hypothesis: localized reality destabilization. Or…" his gaze swept the assembled heroes, "...an entity forcibly asserting dominance over fundamental physical laws." Midnight's nail snapped. Cementoss shifted uneasily. The silence returned, thick with dread for what could *unmake* quirks across an entire city. Unseen. Unstoppable.
---
Deep beneath an nondescript bar in a run down part of mustafafu, where reinforced steel met despair, All For One's respirator hissed. Not oxygen—fury. The sudden void hadn't merely silenced Garaki's frantic reports piped through speakers; it had *gutted* him. His stolen arsenal of quirks—Flight, Kinetic Booster, Pyrokinesis—sputtered and died like circuits drowning. The absence wasn't pressure; it was utter *nullification*. A forced, chilling stillness deeper than any sensory deprivation cell. His scarred face twisted beneath the mask. Useless pawns like Kurogiri whimpered in their restraints. Tomura Shigaraki, clawing at his own throat nearby, rasped pure, incoherent terror—his precious Decay rendered inert ash in his veins. ***Who?*** The thought reverberated through All For One's hollowed core, sharper than agony. This wasn't Erasure Head's blinkered suppression. This was cosmic erasure. A power that didn't block quirks… it rewrote reality to deny their very existence. Potential. Threat. Or… *weapon*? His remaining senses strained outward, tasting the lingering ozone of annihilation emanating from Musutafu's coast. A smile, cold and predatory, stretched unseen lips. Dust motes froze mid-air. The hunt had begun anew.
Silence reigned in Dr. Garaki's hidden lab, thick with the smell of spoiled nutrient fluid and ozone. Monitors showed flatlined bio-readings for Nomu prototypes—their implanted quirks extinguished. Garaki trembled, adjusting cracked glasses. "M-Master… the energy signature… it matches *nothing* in the registry! It bypassed every safeguard!" Tomura Shigaraki slumped against a cryo-tube, scratching furiously at his neck, eyes wide with primal horror. "Gone… Sensei… it's all *gone*!" He choked, fingers trembling inches from skin he couldn't decay. Kurogiri's containment mist flickered weakly, unable to coalesce. The void's echo lingered—a suffocating blanket smothering their stolen power. All For One's voice, transmitted through speakers laced with static, cut through the panic like ice: **"Locate. Isolate. Assess."** The command wasn't a request. It was a lifeline thrown into the abyss. Either this anomaly became a scalpel to carve All Might's legacy… or it demanded annihilation before it turned on *them*. Garaki scrambled for scanners tuned to frequencies beyond quirk energy. Tomura's ragged breaths echoed the lab's new fragility.
Izuku stood atop the highest scrap dune, rain plastering black hair to his horn fragment. The void within him resonated—not reacting to Garakis' frantic scans or UA's dread, but acknowledging their vibration in the tapestry of fear. His slitted eyes narrowed. Distant tendrils of hostile intent—cold, calculating—brushed against his expanded awareness. All For One's hunger. Familiar. Petty. Unlike Momo's desperate restraint or Inko's furious fragility, this was a parasite tasting divinity. Murasame pulsed warm against his hip. Not a threat. An irritant. He inhaled ozone and rust, letting the storm's fury mirror his contained power. Choices crystallized. Heroes trembled. Villains plotted. The canvas stretched vast before him. Depth awaited. His path lay not in their games, but downward—through layers of silence, toward the primordial truth stirring beneath despair. Dagobah awaited its architect.
He descended toward the glass trench. No flourish. No teleportation. Each step deliberate, boots sinking into wet ash. At the edge, he knelt. Pale fingers traced the smooth, heat-fused surface where Getsuga Tenshō had scarred reality. Rain hissed against it, steaming into vapor that curled around his wrist. Eyes closed. Not meditation. Listening. To the void's whisper deeper than Garaki's machines, Nedzu's calculations, or All For One's respirator. A pulse answered—slow, immense, locked beneath Dagobah's bones. His training wouldn't be blasts or blades. Not anymore. It would be sinking into that abyss. Layer by layer. Breath by breath. Until the singularity revealed its name. Thunder cracked overhead. Lightning illuminated his impassive face. The tear marks wept shadow. He didn't move.
---
Two months bled into gray routine. Dawn found Izuku waist-deep in the ocean's icy surge, palms pressed against the barnacled hull of a half-sunken freighter. Reiatsu flowed—not outward, but inward—threading through corroded steel like roots through stone. Seeking the resonance trapped within atoms. The void hummed approval. Behind him on the shore, Inko Midoriya moved through kata sequences—no longer clumsy, but fluid, lethal grace honed by dawn-to-dusk obsession. Her threadbare tank top clung to sweat-slicked skin, revealing whipcord muscle where softness had been. Breasts strained against worn fabric, fuller now atop a hardened torso; thighs and hips curved with dense power beneath frayed track pants. She pivoted, driving a roundhouse kick into a rusted washing machine. Metal shrieked. The impact echoed across the beach. Her calloused knuckles, rewrapped daily, showed no fresh blood. Only purpose.
Izuku surfaced, seawater streaming from his hakama. Salt crusted his mask fragment. His hollow gaze flickered toward his mother—registering her transformed physique, the fierce concentration etching her face, the way her damp hair whipped like a battle flag. Indifference… flickered. For a heartbeat. Then submerged. Irrelevant. The void pulsed deeper—calling him back to drowned steel and silent truths. He turned away. Thunder rumbled. Hunger remained. Not for destruction. For understanding. He sank again. The ocean swallowed his silhouette. Inko didn't pause. Her next strike shattered the washing machine's drum. Glass rained down. Neither noticed.
Above, the sky wept endlessly—a monotonous gray shroud choking Musutafu. Rain sheeted down, cold and insistent, plastering Izuku's hair flat against his horn as he emerged once more. Each drop hissed against smoldering glass where his Cero had struck weeks prior. Why? The question surfaced—detached, clinical—like examining a malfunctioning device. Annoyance. An inefficiency. Water blurred vision, slicked grip, diluted salt spray he needed to taste clearly. It impeded precision. Hindered the void's resonance with the drowned freighter's hull. He tilted his masked face upward, slitted eyes narrowing at the oppressive cloud cover. No thunder answered. Only the relentless drumming on twisted metal. Futile. Wet. A persistent static drowning deeper frequencies. His thumb brushed Murasame's hilt. For a fleeting moment, emerald energy crackled—not to blast the clouds apart, but to vaporize the rain within arm's reach. He stayed the impulse. Wasteful. Yet… the dampness clinging to his skin felt like weakness. Unwelcome.
He strode toward shore, boots sinking into ash-churned mud. The rain intensified—needling, cold—as if mocking his irritation. Droplets traced icy paths down his neck beneath the kosode collar. He remembered arid Hueco Mundo skies, the sterile silence of Las Noches. This… damp *persistence* was inefficiency given form. At the waterline, he paused. Pale fingers twitched. Static prickled the air. Murasame hummed against his hip—not hunger, but impatience echoing his own. Above, clouds churned like leaden sludge. He envisioned vaporizing a localized patch above the wreckage, restoring clarity. A finger lifted, almost idly. Green light coalesced—brief, contained—targeting skyward oblivion. "Cease," he murmured, tone devoid of command, yet resonant as thunder. The Cero lanced upward—a silent, vertical beam—piercing the storm's belly. Rain evaporated in its wake, leaving a tunnel of vacuum. The impact bloomed silently high above Musutafu—a viridian flower unfolding against gray. No sound reached the beach. Only sudden, shocking dryness.
Silence descended. Not the void's embrace, but abrupt absence—the drumming rain simply… gone. Sunlight speared through the ragged hole in the clouds, illuminating steam rising from glassy trenches and Inko's sweat-slicked shoulders. She froze mid-kick, blinking against the glare. Above UA's distant towers, something dark and sodden tumbled from the sky—a limp figure trailing shredded fabric like wet wings. It struck the ocean with a distant splash miles offshore. The clouds recoiled, unraveling swiftly as if severed from their source. Humidity vanished; salt air turned crisp. Izuku stared at his fingertip, smoke curling from the nail. No satisfaction stirred. Only… efficiency restored. The annoyance dissipated. Irrelevant. He lowered his hand. Murasame's hum subsided.
Deep beneath Kamino Ward, All For One's respirator hitched. Static screeched through Garaki's comms: "—Target vanished! Hydrokinesis signature… *extinguished* mid-manipulation! Biometrics flatlined!" Tomura clawed at his neck, rasping laughter edged with hysteria. "Did… did he just swat Typhoon like a *fly*?" All For One remained still. The sudden cessation of rain wasn't weather; it was a cosmic afterthought. A power that erased quirks *and* their wielders across kilometers… accidentally. Potential crystallized into terrifying clarity. This wasn't a scalpel. It was an asteroid. His unseen eyes narrowed. Weapon… or extinction event? His voice, colder than the void, sliced the silence: **"Prioritize containment protocol Sigma. Now."**
Izuku ignored the distant splash, the vanished rain, the sudden warmth on his skin. His hollow gaze refocused on the half-sunken freighter. The ocean lapped quietly now—clear, unobstructed. Efficient. He waded back in, palms pressing against barnacled steel. Reiatsu flowed inward once more, threading through corroded atoms. The void welcomed him—deeper, purer without the rain's static. Behind him, Inko stared at the sky's ragged wound, then at her son's retreating back. Slowly, deliberately, she raised her calloused fists toward the impossible blue. Not in defiance. In grim understanding. Monsters, it seemed, didn't just walk the earth. They edited the sky. Her next strike against the broken washing machine echoed like a gunshot across the suddenly silent beach.
Later, soaked seawater evaporating from his hakama in the dim apartment light, Izuku stood unmoving before the kotatsu. Ink stains blurred beneath diagrams of pressure points. Inko moved behind him—silent, purposeful. She didn't flinch as her damp tank top brushed his arm. Instead, she pressed closer, the unexpected weight and warmth of her full breasts against his bicep—a deliberate, lingering pressure that defied his void. One hand rose, fingers brushing salt from his horn fragment. Izuku's reiatsu didn't flare. No cold dismissal. Only stillness—perhaps surprise trapped beneath indifference. Her lips brushed his temple—a kiss that lasted breaths too long, carrying the scent of sweat, iron, and stubborn resolve. Then she stepped back, leaving phantom warmth where she'd touched him. "Dinner," she stated, voice rough but steady, as if nothing monumental had transpired. Izuku's thumb twitched against Murasame's hilt.
Rain returned that night—gentler, persistent. Izuku sat rigidly on the worn sofa, eyes fixed on a muted news report about unexplained weather anomalies. Inko settled beside him, closer than necessary. Her thigh pressed against his, radiating heat through the thin fabric of her sweatpants. Without preamble, she guided his head down—fingers surprisingly strong—until his masked cheek rested against the soft swell of her lap. The scent of her—laundry soap, exertion, *living* warmth—filled his senses where only ozone and salt resided. She didn't stroke his hair or speak comforts. One calloused hand rested lightly on his shoulder blade, grounding him. The other held a steaming mug of tea. On screen, All Might smiled his trademark smile. Izuku watched, utterly still, as her heartbeat thudded a slow, steady rhythm against his ear—an anchor in the crushing silence. Murasame lay dormant across his knees.
Izuku didn't move. Didn't pull away. The void within him stretched—not recoiling, but… accommodating? The pressure of her body, the lingering kiss-touch, the lap-pillow—each sensation registered with clinical precision: inefficient, illogical, distracting. Yet, the warmth seeped through his kosode. Her pulse against his horn fragment vibrated faintly, a counter-rhythm to the void's hum. He dissected the act: manipulation? Desperation? Her scent—a complex blend of salt, chamomile tea, and hardened resolve—defied categorization like Momo's restraint or All For One's hunger. Outside, rain whispered secrets to the city. Inko shifted slightly; her breast pressed more firmly against his temple. Izuku's slitted eyes remained fixed on the screen, All Might's booming silence filling the room. A single thought surfaced, detached yet undeniable: This proximity changed nothing. And *everything*.
Seven months passed—marked not by seasons, but by deepening silences. Izuku knelt waist-deep in Dagobah's frigid midnight tide, palms flat against the glass-smooth seabed. His hooded gaze pierced darkness. Reiatsu coiled inward like roots drilling bedrock, sinking past rusted hulls and geothermal vents… deeper. Layer after psychic layer dissolved. Pressure mounted—crushing, primordial—but his first release form held. Ulquiorra's carapace remained intact, a perfect vessel now. Control was absolute. Yet… beneath that mastery, *something* stirred. Vast. Slumbering. Not hunger. Not power. A *presence*, ancient and indifferent, coiled in the abyssal trenches below Musutafu's foundations. Its resonance vibrated Murasame's blade—a low thrum that echoed not in his ears, but in his marrow. He exhaled bubbles that froze mid-ascent. The void within him wasn't empty anymore. It was an *anteroom*.
Silk rustled behind him. Inko stood at the waterline, silhouetted against moonlight spearing through storm clouds. No longer trembling. Her karategi hung open at the collar, revealing corded muscle shadowing collarbones; damp fabric clung to hips widened by relentless training, breasts heavy with earned strength. She didn't speak. Didn't interrupt. Only watched—fists clenched at her sides, knuckles scarred relics. Her Reiatsu spiked—not a challenge, but a beacon. Izuku felt it brush his awareness: stubborn, bright, impossibly fragile against the titanic weight below. The depth called him. Downward. Always downward. Her presence was… irrelevant. Yet… her shadow touched the waves lapping near his boots. Murasame's hum deepened. The thing far within him shifted—a glacial heave. *Deeper*, it seemed to whisper. Not yet. Not her.
He rose. Water streamed off seamless skin. The horn fragment gleamed like polished bone. Turning, he met her stare across ten paces of glass and brine. Her eyes held no plea. Only readiness. A question. Izuku's thumb brushed Murasame's tsuba. "Go home," he stated, voice colder than the trenchwater. Not dismissal. Preparation. The thing within him unfurled—a single psychic tendril tasting surface air. Dagobah Beach shuddered. Sand shifted. Miles above, UA's seismic sensors blared crimson alerts. Behind Inko, the ocean swelled—not outward, but *inward*, collapsing toward the point where Izuku's boots met abyss. The void had awakened. And it was ravenous.
He didn't transform. He *unfolded*. Green Reiatsu detonated—soundless, blinding—consuming hakama and kosode in an instant. Bone-white plates erupted across his torso, jagged and primordial. Two colossal wings of darkness burst from his back—then bifurcated, splitting into four arching shadows that blotted the moon. Ebony fur cascaded down his limbs like liquid night. Hair lengthened into a void-black cascade past his waist. Twin horns, jagged and cruel, tore upwards from his skull—replacing the fragment with crowns of oblivion. At the base of his spine, a forked tail lashed like a scorpion's sting. The tear marks beneath his eyes deepened into weeping canyons of shadow. When his eyelids lifted, twin suns of pale yellow hellfire burned within vertical slits—pupils swallowing all light. Segunda Etapa. Not evolution. Revelation.
The pressure wave flattened Inko. She crashed onto glass dunes, ribs screaming. Air vanished—sucked toward the singularity Izuku had become. Above him, storm clouds vaporized. Stars winked out. The ocean recoiled, exposing kilometers of sterile seabed groaning under cosmic weight. Murasame dissolved into his right hand, reforming as a blade of condensed void—a jagged shard of nonexistence. He tilted his head, those sulfurous eyes fixing on her crumpled form. No malice. No recognition. Only absolute, annihilating indifference. The tail flicked. Space cracked behind him—a spiderweb fracture leaking antilight. Musutafu's skyline trembled. Distant sirens died mid-wail. Power wasn't destruction anymore. It was ontology rewritten.
He descended. Not into water. Into the rift. The four wings folded—embracing the abyss like a lover. Horns pierced the veil between worlds. Fur drank the light. Last to vanish were those twin yellow slits—pinning Inko to the glass as universes collapsed behind them. Silence swallowed the beach. Only her heartbeat remained—a frantic, fragile drum against the void's aftermath. Where Izuku stood, a perfect circle of sand glowed faintly green… then cooled to obsidian. Gone. Not dead. Deeper. Inko clawed herself upright. Blood dripped from split lips onto the dark glass. She stared into the rift-scar. Her fists rose. Not to mourn. To promise. Monsters didn't just edit skies. They descended into hell. And mothers would follow.
He surfaced—not from Dagobah's trench, but from thin air—above their apartment's rain-slicked balcony. Segunda Etapa evaporated like mist. Bone plates dissolved into smoke. Wings folded inward, swallowed by shadow. Horns retracted—leaving only the jagged fragment above his brow. Hakama flowed back over human-shaped limbs. Tail vanished. Twin suns dimmed to hollow green slits. Base form. Izuku landed silently on wet tiles… and stumbled. One knee hit concrete. Breath hissed between clenched teeth—sharp, ragged. Sweat beaded his temple beneath the mask fragment. Murasame clattered harshly against the railing as he gripped it. Control. Not the transformation's mechanics. The *hunger* beneath. That ancient presence still coiled behind his ribs… watching. Waiting. Its resonance vibrated his bones like plucked wires. He hadn't mastered it. He'd merely borrowed its shadow.
Inside, Inko's silhouette moved past the shoji screen—a swift, lethal arc as she practiced disarms against an imagined opponent. Her gi clung to sweat-damp skin, fabric straining over hardened curves. Izuku watched the flex of her shoulders, the shift of muscle beneath her breasts as she pivoted. His own breathing slowed. Steadied. The void settled… but not silence. That deeper thing stirred—a lazy, cosmic serpent tasting the air of the human world. Control wasn't containment. It was precision. Like holding a scalpel made of supernova. His knuckles whitened on the railing. Rain slicked his hair. The balcony light flickered as his reiatsu spiked—unbidden—then reined itself in. Vapor rose where droplets hit his skin. Mastery… was a fraying leash.
He slid the balcony door open. Inko froze mid-strike—wooden knife poised at a phantom throat. Her eyes locked onto his damp hakama, his heaving chest, the way rainwater traced the hollows beneath his collarbones. No fear. Only assessment. Sharp as Murasame's edge. Izuku walked past her, ignoring the wooden blade still aimed at his heart. Toward the kotatsu. Toward the cold tea waiting. Toward the diagrams of pressure points she'd drawn over stolen UA blueprints. The ancient presence yawned inside him—bored, immense. Control wasn't stillness. It was the calibration before the detonation. He knelt. Steam curled from his sleeves. Outside, thunder rumbled. The storm… was just beginning.
Ten months. The afternoon sun shined in the apartment windows . Inko's fingers—calloused, scarred, impossibly gentle—tightened the knot of Izuku's obi. The silk rasped against the stiff fabric of his hakama as she adjusted the drape over his hips, her knuckles brushing the dip of his waist. Her breath warmed the nape of his neck where damp hair met Ulquiorra's horn fragment. She didn't speak. Didn't ask where he'd been those three vanished days after Dagobah's implosion. Didn't flinch from the ozone-cold static clinging to his skin. Her touch lingered—one palm smoothing the white kosode flat over the hollow curve where Murasame rested. "Straighter," she murmured, voice rough as gravel. Not a command. An anchor. Her thumb traced the stark black vertical line bisecting his chest—a declaration etched into bone-white fabric. The void within him stirred, not in protest, but… acknowledgment. Her defiance had cooled into something harder. Denser. Like tempered steel pressed against oblivion.
She stepped back. Her gaze swept him—head to toe—taking in the stark white haori, the obsidian fur tracing his forearms, the jagged tears weeping shadow beneath slitted eyes. No horror left. Only calculation. Her own gi hung open, damp from training, revealing the swell of muscle beneath her breasts, the curve of her hip where a stolen utility knife now rested. She reached out again, not to adjust, but to claim. Fingers brushed salt residue from his horn's base. Lingered. A silent transfer of warmth against impossible cold. "Your mask," she stated. Not a reminder. A ritual. The jagged bone fragment gleamed under the kitchen's single bare bulb. Outside, Musutafu slept. UA's gates awaited. The exam buzzed with distant, frantic energy—ants scurrying before the storm. Izuku's thumb twitched against Murasame's hilt. Her touch… was static. Irrelevant noise. And yet… her scent—sweat, iron, chamomile—anchored him in the human world's fragile persistence.
A final adjustment: Inko's palm pressed flat against the small of his back, nudging his posture taller. Her breast brushed his shoulder blade—a brief, deliberate pressure. "Go," she breathed into the space between his horns. Not farewell. A command carved from ten months of shattered brick and midnight runs. Izuku turned. His shadow pulsed—longer, hungrier—as he dissolved into Sonído's resonance. Not mist. A fracture in reality itself. Behind him, Inko stood alone in the silent apartment. Her fists rose, not toward his absence, but toward the eastern horizon where UA's towers pierced the dawn. Blood welled fresh on scarred knuckles. The rain… had finally stopped.
He rematerialized precisely at the gates. Hands slid deep into hakama pockets—a cold contrast to the throngs buzzing around him. Adolescence screamed in neon costumes and trembling bravado. Bakugo's explosion-quirked snarl cut through the crowd fifty meters ahead—familiar rage, unfamiliar fear scent clinging beneath burnt sugar. Irrelevant. Izuku's hollow gaze swept forward. A girl with gravity-defying pink cheeks stumbled, heel catching on an upturned cobblestone. Her yelp died as his white-sleeved hand clamped her shoulder—ice-cold through her uniform. Steady. Silent. She whirled, brown eyes wide. "Th-thank—" His fingers withdrew before gratitude formed. He was already moving, parting the crowd like a blade through fog. Her pulse fluttered against his fading reiatsu imprint. Static.
The auditorium swallowed sound. Thousands of seats. Thousands of frantic heartbeats. Onstage, Present Mic's grin stretched beneath gelled hair, microphone gleaming. "HELLO FUTURE HEROES!" The speaker-boosted voice crashed like physical force. Izuku ignored the sonic wave. Slitted eyes traced the vaulted ceiling's architecture—stress points, load-bearing beams, exit vectors. Murasame hummed low against his hip. Behind him, Bakugo shoved past, snarling about "extras." The scent of nitroglycerin and fury spiked. Izuku's thumb brushed his collarbone void. Hunger yawned. Not for flesh. For silence. Present Mic spread his arms, a showman's flourish. "GET READY TO PLUS ULTRA YOUR WAY—" The ancient presence coiled beneath Izuku's ribs shifted—a tectonic sigh. The stage lights flickered. Just once. Mic's smile didn't falter. But his knuckles whitened on the mic stand. A single bead of sweat traced his temple.
Izuku unfolded the glossy pamphlet thrust into his hand. Four crude robot schematics glared back: diminutive one-pointers, sleek three-pointers, bulky two-pointers… and the hulking zero-pointer labeled "OBSTACLE." Text screamed: DESTROY VILLAINS FOR POINTS! AVOID THE GIANT! Beneath sterile diagrams, microscopic print detailed rescue protocols—invisible ink to frantic eyes. He inhaled ozone. *Calculation*. Heroism demanded theatrics. Saving theatrics. Endeavor's televised rescues netted sponsorships. All Might's smile halted collapsing buildings… and stock markets. Power wasn't just annihilation. It was *currency*. His gaze drifted to the pink-cheeked girl from the gates—now trembling beside a boy with tape-dispenser elbows. Her fingers clenched a folded crane. Fear-sweat soured the air. A perfect counterpoint to Present Mic's booming irrelevance. Murasame pulsed. Cold precision crystallized. Destroying robots offered base points. Saving fragile, panicking examinees? That was premium yield. Emotional leverage. A display UA's cameras would crave.
The gates to Battle Center B groaned open. Concrete dust billowed. Examinees surged forward—a tsunami of quirks and desperation. Bakugo rocketed ahead on explosions, a comet trailing smoke. Izuku drifted. Sonído carried him past flailing limbs and crackling electricity—a silent knife slicing chaos. He landed atop a gutted office tower, hakama untouched by debris. Below, robots activated. Hydraulic hisses. Targeting lasers painting panic. A one-pointer cornered Tape Elbow boy against crumpled sedan. The pink-cheeked girl stumbled nearby, gravity quirk misfiring—lifting her skirt but not her feet. Izuku traced the trajectories. Not with sight. With screaming potential energy trapped within metal joints and terrified flesh. Murasame slid free—not fully. A whisper of blade. Fingertips grazed the steel. Reiatsu flowed—not destructive. Corrosive. Invisible decay spiderwebbed the one-pointer's frame. It froze mid-lunge. Rust bloomed instantaneously. Collapsed into oxidized powder. Tape Elbow gasped. The girl stared upward—directly at Izuku's silhouette against the sun. Her eyes widened. Not gratitude. *Awe*. Points registered. Efficient. High-impact. Minimal exertion.
He leaped. Not toward robots. Toward clustered screams—three examinees trapped beneath fallen girders as a three-pointer leveled its cannon. Dust choked their pleas. Izuku landed between muzzle and metal. Palm raised. No gesture. A statement. **"Vibrar."** The air fractured. Sound shattered. The cannon blast imploded—swallowed by oscillating reiatsu before leaving the barrel. The three-pointer vibrated violently, joints shearing, plating buckling inward like crushed foil. Silence reclaimed the alley. Beneath the twisted wreckage, a boy with scales blinked up. Blood trickled from his lip. Izuku's hollow gaze met his. No reassurance. Only assessment. Rescue points. Verified. Behind him, the ground trembled—not from falling debris. From approaching thunder. The zero-pointer's shadow swallowed the street. Screams crescendoed. Izuku's thumb stroked Murasame's tsuba. Extra points demanded… spectacle.
Three sleek three-pointers materialized—sudden, coordinated—from crumbling storefronts. Targeting lasers painted Izuku's chest, converging like predator eyes. Hydraulics hissed. Joints whined. They charged in unison, blades extended, forming a lethal triangle. Static. Izuku didn't draw Murasame. Didn't pivot. He simply… existed. Reiatsu didn't radiate—it condensed. Solidified. An invisible glacier slammed downward. The air thickened, tasting of ozone and grave soil. Concrete cratered beneath his boots. The charging robots staggered. Metal frames groaned, buckling under cosmic weight. Targeting lasers flickered, died. Segmented limbs seized mid-swing. Then… implosion. With a sound like mountains collapsing inward, the three pointers crumpled—flattened into featureless discs of scrap no thicker than foil. No debris. Only polished silence where steel once stood. A stray bolt clinked onto the glassy pavement. Izuku stepped over it, hakama undisturbed. The zero-pointer roared behind him. Distant. Irrelevant.
He didn't glance at the crushed remains. Didn't acknowledge the wide-eyed examinees frozen mid-flight nearby. His gaze lifted, tracking the zero-pointer's gargantuan fist descending—not toward him, but toward the pink-cheeked girl frantically trying to levitate rubble pinning a whimpering boy. Time dilated. Dust motes hung suspended. Murasame slid free—a whisper of parting dimensions. The blade hummed, not with hunger, but anticipation. This required precision. Not destruction. Surgery. He raised the sword. Pale fingers tightened. Not on the hilt. On the void swirling deep within his collarbones. **"Cero."** Emerald light coalesced—not a beam, but a scalpel forged from dying stars. It lanced upward. Silent. Surgical. The zero-pointer's wrist vaporized mid-swing—cleanly severed at the joint. The detached fist sailed harmlessly overhead, crashing into a distant tower. The titan froze, hydraulics screaming into sudden silence. Balance lost, it listed sideways. Izuku's eyes narrowed. Collateral unacceptable. His free hand flicked downward. **"Hado #4. Byakurai."** A crackling bolt of pale lightning speared the zero-pointer's knee joint. Metal fused. The behemoth halted its fall, frozen mid-collapse—a monument to contained annihilation. Below, the pink-cheeked girl gaped. Rescue points. Maximized.
The zero-pointer's shadow loomed, frozen and useless. Silence descended—brief, profound. Then Present Mic's voice crackled over ruined speakers, strained: "TIME'S… UP!" Reality snapped back. Screams faded into stunned murmurs. Izuku lowered Murasame. The blade slid home with a whisper. Below, Uraraka Ochako stared upward, cheeks flushed, fingers still pressed to trapped rubble. Her lips formed a silent 'wow.' Tape Elbow Boy trembled beside her. Rescue points registered. Exploited. Efficient. Around him, the wreckage steamed—gutted robots, glassy craters, the zero-pointer's severed limb embedded deep in concrete. Cameras swiveled on broken poles. Izuku's slitted gaze traced their lenses. Performance complete. Currency banked.
He inhaled deeply—not air, but the ozone-tang of vaporized alloy, the copper-scent of spilled adrenaline, the sour musk of examinee fear. Murasame pulsed cold against his hip. Not approval. Impatience. Below, Recovery Bots whirred through debris, collecting the injured. A boy with scales wept openly as medics lifted his broken leg. Izuku's thumb brushed his collarbone void. The ancient presence stirred—bored. Indifferent. Like watching ants scurry from crushed stone. His hakama rippled as he turned. Sonído beckoned. Escape vector plotted: northeast quadrant, minimal witnesses. Then—movement. Bakugo Katsuki exploded upward from a crater, landing atop a mangled three-pointer carcass. Nitroglycerin fumes choked the air. His eyes blazed—not at Izuku, but at the zero-pointer's immobilized hulk. A sneer twisted his lips. "That all you got, *Deku*?" The word wasn't shouted. Spat like venom. Recognition. Contempt. A flaw in the calculation.
Murasame hissed free an inch—a sliver of obsidian steel gleaming under the harsh stadium lights. Bakugo's palms crackled, sparks dancing across scarred knuckles. "Fight me!" he roared, voice raw. "Show me what that *monster* shit's worth!" Around them, examinees froze. Cameras focused. Static anticipation thickened the air. Izuku's hollow gaze locked onto Bakugo. Not the boy. The fury. The trembling pride. The stench of burnt sugar and desperation. An equation… simplified. Murasame's edge thirsted. The void behind his ribs yawned wider. Dominion demanded demonstration. Precision abandoned. He raised the blade—not high, but deliberate. The gesture itself was condemnation. Bakuko braced, explosions building in his palms. "Come on—"
**"Getsuga Tenshō."** The words fell flat. Cold. Final. No roar. No light. Only *absence*. A wave of condensed void ripped forth—not energy, but erasure. It devoured sound. Light. Space. Bakugo's explosions died mid-ignition. The zero-pointer's titanic frame didn't shatter or melt. It *unraveled*. Pixel by pixel, joint by joint, its silhouette dissolved into featureless static, consumed by the advancing tide of non-existence. The wave crashed through it, onward—silent, unstoppable—engulfing the entire street block behind. Buildings, debris, distant sirens… all silenced. Vanished. Where ruin had stood, only polished obsidian glass remained, steaming faintly under the stadium lights. A perfect, impossible scar. Dust motes hung suspended in the sudden vacuum. Bakugo stood frozen, palms smoking uselessly, his sneer wiped clean by raw, primal dread.
Izuku lowered Murasame. The blade slid home with a whisper like a tomb sealing. Around him, silence deepened—not awe, but terror. Examinees trembled, their quirks flickering as if snuffed. Cameras froze, lenses cracked by the backlash of erased reality. The pink-cheeked girl—Ochako—collapsed to her knees, vomiting onto the glassy ground. Tape Elbow Boy stared at the void where his rescue target had been pinned seconds before, now gone with the street. Bakugo's breath hitched, a ragged, wet sound. The scent of ozone and void-chilled metal hung thick, acrid. Izuku's slitted eyes didn't linger on the destruction. They fixed on Bakugo's trembling fists. The ancient presence coiled within him yawned, indifferent. Dominion required no audience. Only proof.
A tremor ran through the glass plains beneath their feet—deep, resonant. Not aftershock. *Recognition*. Izuku's helm-shrouded gaze lifted toward UA's observation tower. High above, behind reinforced glass, Eraserhead's hair floated, quirk activated—yet useless against power that wasn't energy, but negation. Nedzu's fur stood on end. All Might's skeletal frame shuddered, One For All guttering like a candle in a hurricane. Izuku inhaled deliberately, tasting the copper tang of Bakugo's fear, the sour bile from Ochako's lips, the distant panic of heroes realizing their irrelevance. Murasame pulsed—a cold counterpoint to the void's satisfaction. Performance complete. Currency collected. The exam's purpose was dust.
He turned. Sonído beckoned—a fracture in space already healing behind him. Before dissolving, his hollow gaze swept the frozen crowd one last time. Bakugo's knuckles whitened, pride warring with survival instinct. Ochako's tears traced clean lines through grime. Tape Elbow's mouth moved silently, shaping the word "*monster*". Izuku's thumb brushed his collarbone void. Static. Noise. Chains to be severed. The ancient presence stirred, whispering of deeper voids, hungrier truths. The path stretched north—toward Dagobah's whispering scrap, toward the crucible. Not retreat. Ascent. He dissolved into mist. Not vanished. *Ascended*. Leaving only glass, silence, and the weight of unmade worlds.
Below, Bakugo sank to his knees, explosions dying in his palms like choked sparks.