….
"GAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA!"
Daigoro Banjo threw his head back and roared with booming, uncontrollable laughter.
He slapped his knees, pounding his fist against the armrest of his chair until the metaphysical floor shook beneath them.
It had been brought down by an underground hero who had rejected their power to walk his own impossible path, and a selfless boy who braved the jaws of hell simply to offer a crying child a hand in the dark.
What stunned them even more was the sheer, unprecedented way Midoriya had actually broken that mental cage.
None of the past wielders had ever imagined a boy like Izuku Midoriya.
The gentle, polite kid who once wept over every scrape and apologized for merely existing would now boldly provoke the leader of the League of Villains, daring him to tear down the world with his own hands instead of remaining someone else's puppet.
Under Dabi's grueling tutelage and uncompromising pragmatism, the Ninth User had changed drastically.
He had grown a sharp, unyielding backbone, trading naive hesitation for a raw, psychological edge.
Yet, beneath everything that had changed, Midoriya was still the same boy at heart, using those ruthless words not out of malice but to reach a drowning child and pull him back from the abyss.
The disbelief slowly gave way to something overwhelming: pure, radiant joy.
Smiles broke across faces that had known only war.
Toshitsugu Kudo, who had once dismissed the boy as too soft, a liability who would crumble under the pragmatism of true war, stared down at the battlefield below.
Kudo had initially favored Dabi's ruthless efficiency, but watching Midoriya take the worst of that brutal doctrine, mold it to his own will, and drag a monster's soul back to the light left the Second User completely speechless.
A proud, quiet smirk finally tugged at the old commander's lips.
Daigoro Banjo threw his head back and let out a booming, boisterous whistle. "Holy hell! That kid is completely unhinged! Dropping in with Float and using Blackwhip as body armor just to slap some sense into that brat's soul?! Craziest damn thing I have seen in a hundred years!"
"It was an absurd preceeding…." Bruce noted. "A single hesitation in his cadence and the host would have completely surrendered to the leach."
Hikage Shinomori nodded slowly, his disciplined posture relaxing.
"And that teacher of his..." Toshitsugu Kudo muttered, his glare fixed on Dabi's solitary figure below.
Kudo had once claimed Dabi's ruthless pragmatism made him the ideal weapon for war.
But watching Dabi stand as an absolute shield for his student while simultaneously destroying the demon's vessel had silenced any lingering doubt–
"The man is a monster in combat."
En adjusted his high collar. "A flawless convergence of pragmatism and idealism."
Yoichi Shigaraki looked down at his own trembling hands, a gentle radiant smile gracing his features–
"My brother believed human hearts were nothing more than toys to be rewritten and stolen. But Izuku... and Dabi... they shattered that hundred year curse with nothing more than truth and an unbreakable will."
Beside him, Nana Shimura stood with tears glistening in her warm eyes.
She looked through the connection at her grandson's peaceful, resting form, and then at the green-haired boy who had braved hell just to hug him.
"Thank you, Dabi and Izuku..." Nana whispered, her voice overflowing with fierce, compassionate warmth. "Thank you for saving my family."
Above them all, the towering, golden phantom of Toshinori Yagi swelled with immense pride.
He remembered standing in the hospital room, watching Dabi refuse the power because he chose to walk his own path, and remembered handing the torch to a quirkless boy.
The predecessors who had once doubted the succession were completely united now.
All Might had not made a mistake.
He had entrusted the future to two extraordinary boys… one who became the unbreakable shield in the dark, and one who carried the light to reach anyone crying in the ruins.
….
Across the nation, time seemed to grind to a halt.
In the living rooms of Tokyo, in crowded emergency shelters across Yamanashi, and in packed commercial squares from Musutafu to Osaka, millions of pairs of eyes were locked onto the flickering television screens and towering public monitors.
The blinding celestial azure light that had split the heavens over Kamino Ward finally began to dissipate.
The live camera feeds, broadcast from the distant media helicopters that had managed to regain stability after being violently thrown by the atmospheric wind shear, slowly refocused through the thinning plumes of superheated steam.
On the screen, the terrifying black ocean of [Decay] was completely gone.
The monolithic shadow of All For One's vessel had been erased.
And standing alone amidst the vast, glassy crater was a single figure.
His hands were loosely into his charred coat pockets and steam drifted off his shoulders.
Dabi had won.
For three agonizing seconds, absolute silence blanketed the entire country.
Then, the world erupted.
In the streets, deafening roars tore through the evacuation zones.
Strangers grabbed each other by the shoulders, weeping openly in disbelief.
News anchors on live broadcast completely lost their composure, their voices breaking over their microphones:
["-The League's leader... he is gone! The attack has been completely repelled! Pro Hero Dabi has neutralized the final threat! Kamino Ward is secured! I repeat… THE THREAT HAS BEEN NEUTRALIZED!"]
In Musutafu, Inko Midoriya sank fully onto her knees clutching her trembling chest as tears of overwhelming relief poured down her face.
In the U.A. command center, the gathered staff and heroes exhaled breaths they felt like they had been holding for hours, while little Eri clutched the monitor screen with shining eyes.
Across every channel and every frequency, the verdict was undisputed.
The demon was defeated.
Just then–
Detective Naomasa Tsukauchi and an elite containment squad rushed into the smoking basin.
"Secure the perimeter! Sweep the entire sector for any traces or hostile remnants!" Naomasa commanded sharply through his radio.
Quirk specialist officers and forensic specialists quickly fanned out across the glassy, scorched bedrock.
But there was no suspect to restrain, or the quirk nullifying cuffs were needed.
At the center of the vast crater, where the League's leader had unleashed his final attack, there was nothing.
Tenko Shimura was gone.
His body and Quirk had disintegrated into the wind, leaving not even a trace behind.
They couldn't find All For One's original body either, but that didn't mean he had escaped. During Dabi's battle with Tenko, his body had been destroyed so completely that not a single cell remained.
It wasn't a death worthy of a king, or even a dog.
Naomasa stopped three paces in front of Dabi, slowly taking off his fedora as he stared at the empty crater in dazed disbelief.
"Dabi..." He rubbed a tired hand over his face. "The entire League command structure has been dismantled in a single night. The escaped prisoners are being transported back to secure facilities, and the Commission and media are already losing their minds over the broadcast."
"The Commission?" Dabi muttered.
Right. I completely forgot about those idiots, and Lady Nagant should have reached the location by now.
He glanced once more at the ruined battlefield before turning away.
"Thanks for the reminder. Anyway, my job here is done."
Dabi turned his back on the ashes and started toward the sloped ridge leading out of the basin.
As he reached the upper ridge where the students had gathered, the teenagers instinctively parted to give their instructor room.
Midoriya stepped forward first, his eyes shining with unspoken questions, profound relief, and gratitude, while Bakugo stood a few steps behind him with his hands shoved into his pockets, Todoroki watched silently, and Uraraka, Iida, Kirishima, Yaoyorozu, Tsuyu, Kaminari, looked on with varying degrees of exhaustion and relief.
"Sensei..." Midoriya began.
Dabi raised a hand, cutting him off before he could launch into his usual muttering spiral.
"Don't think you can get away, Izuku." he muttered, a faint smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. "You're doing double the beach drills for that jump into the pit. Now move it. I need to get back to Rumi and the girls waiting at home. I am not spending another damn second in this district."
Looking down the road toward the first golden hues of the rising sun, Class 1-A fell into step behind their teacher, battered and exhausted but leaving the ruins together.
The absolute silence that had blanketed Kamino Ward finally cracked, then shattered all at once.
As the reality of what had just transpired washed over the area, a massive, deafening roar tore through the streets.
Strangers embraced, medical teams cheered, and even the stern-faced police officers along the outer perimeter lowered their shields, pumping their fists in sheer, unadulterated relief.
Dabi walked past the perimeter, hands buried deep inside his charred coat pockets, utterly ignoring the sea of flashing cameras.
As he reached the command tent line, All Might and Gran Torino stepped forward to meet him.
All Might stood in his gaunt, skeletal frame, his sunken blue eyes wide and shining with unshed tears.
He opened his mouth, his chest hitching as he tried to find the right words to say.
He had prepared a dozen formal apologies, speeches about responsibility, and lectures on reckless behavior, but seeing Dabi standing tall after breaking All For One's grand design and protecting the next generation without losing his soul, the former Symbol of Peace could only offer a deep, respectful bow.
"Young Dabi..." All Might managed, his voice thick, rough, and trembling. "You... you truly... did what I never could."
.
….
[To be continued…]
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