[UA HIGH SCHOOL – HEIGHTS ALLIANCE DORMITORY – 5:10 AM]
"I SAID UNHAND ME, YOU SHIT-HAIR EXTRA!"
"Bakugo, for the tenth time, no!" Kirishima shouted, his arms fully hardened as he and Sero acted like a human anchor, dragging the explosive blonde back from the front door.
"It's against the rules to be out this late."
"IT'S ALREADY FIVE IN THE MORNING YOU IDIOTS! LET GO!"
Neither was budging. "It's still technically night!" Sero protested, desperately trying to anchor Bakugo's arms wrapped in tape to the couch. "Curfew doesn't end until six! Plus, weren't you watching the TV? You go out there now, getting expelled will be the least of your problems."
"NO WAY I'M WAITING ONE MORE HOUR! NOW LET ME GO BEFORE I BLAST YOUR FACES OFF!"
"Bakugo, calm down." Kaminari stood a safe distance away, hands raised placatingly.
"You can't just leave campus. Aizawa-sensei said .... "
"I DON'T GIVE A DAMN WHAT THAT TIRED BASTARD SAID!" Bakugo's palms let off a series of warning pops, making Sero and Kirishima flinch.
"LOOK AT THE SCREEN. THERE ARE VILLAINS ATTACKING PRISONS ACROSS THE ENTIRE COUNTRY AND WE'RE SITTING HERE LIKE A BUNCH OF USELESS EXTRAS!"
The common area had become an impromptu war room over the past two hours. The massive television mounted on the wall displayed split-screen coverage of six different prison breaks. Around it, most of Class 1-A sat in various states of exhaustion, shock, or—in Bakugo's case—barely restrained fury.
The first emergency alert had come at 3:47 AM. Then another at 4:12. By 4:30, everyone had given up on sleep entirely and gathered downstairs, watching in mounting horror as the news coverage spiraled.
By now, Iida was frantically trying to organize a "crisis communication chain," while Uraraka and Tsuyu sat huddled near the TV, their faces pale
"Bakugo," Todoroki said from the kitchen counter, voice flat. "Even if you went, what exactly would you do?"
Bakugo's head snapped toward him. "WHAT KIND OF QUESTION IS THAT?!"
"A practical one." Todoroki took a sip of tea, completely unbothered by the death glare being aimed at him.
"You're a first-year student. No provisional license. No combat authorization. Forget helping. You'd probably be mistaken for a villain and arrested before you reached the first prison."
"WHY YOU! ..."
"He's right about one thing though." Tokoyami uttered from the corner, face illuminated by the blue light of his phone. "It's not just Kamino or Shinjuku anymore. The scale of this attack is beyond anything we've experienced." He lowered his head. "With the top heroes defeated, this is probably the darkest day in hero society."
"Darkest day is an understatement," Kaminari muttered, his hands trembling as he refreshed a news feed. "Look at this ... There's been six prison breaks already. I can't believe the heroes are getting overwhelmed so ... So ...."
Yaoyorozu sat with perfect posture despite the hour, though her hands were clasped so tightly in her lap that her knuckles had gone white. "The police and remaining heroes are responding. We have to trust that—"
"Trust?" Bakugo' scowled. "Trust WHO exactly? In case you haven't noticed, ALL THE TOP HEROES ARE DOWN! Endeavor's done! Best Jeanist is in surgery! Who the hell is left to trust?!"
The room went quiet. Because he wasn't wrong.
Asui spoke up from her spot on the floor, voice unusually subdued. "Where is All Might? Ribbit."
Everyone turned to look at her. "I mean..." She gestured at the television. "This has been going on for over an hour. Six prisons and hundreds of villains escaped. And All Might hasn't shown up anywhere."
"Maybe he's already at the front lines," Yaoyorozu suggested, her voice thin with a hope she clearly didn't feel.
"Ribbit. But shouldn't he be on the news then? Why haven't we seen him? He's not on any of the news coverage or at any of the disaster sites. Where is he?"
Uraraka, who'd been silent until now, looked up. "Come to think of it... I haven't seen All Might around school for a few days."
"Yeah. Speaking of which, I haven't seen Mr. Aizawa either." Kirishima uttered with difficulty, still holding Bakugo down from going anywhere.
"Hey Midoriya? You know anything?"
Everyone turned to Midoriya, only to see him outside standing near the balcony seemingly lost in thought.
"Hey .. Deku?"
"Huh?" Midoriya was slightly startled. "Um ... No, no I don't." His head lowered. "I just know he left three days ago."
"Could it be because of what Mr Aizawa said that day?"
"Well that's just great," Mineta said. "So the Symbol of Peace is MIA while the country's literally burning. It's over! The country is gonna get overrun by villains and we're all gonna die in ...."
"SHUT UP, YOU COWARD!" Bakugo yelled as he took one final, violent lunge, dragging Kirishima and Sero nearly three feet across the hardwood floor. "I'm going to the Principal's office. If anyone knows where All Might is, it's him."
"Calm down Bakugo .."
'Hold on... We... we seem to be getting an emergency broadcast. This is an priority override from the Hero Public Safety Commission.'
"Hey Guys? What are they saying on the TV?"
"Huh?" Everyone's heads turned toward the screen. The split-screen prison coverage had frozen mid-frame. Then flickered. Once, then twice.
"Is the feed breaking?" Sato asked. The screen went black.
"Did we lose signal?" Mina leaned forward. "Kirishima, check the—" The screen came back on. However, the chaotic helicopter footage of a burning Shinjuku prison had vanished. Instead, what was shown was a mahogany conference table.
One splattered with blood. "What the..." Sero's tape went slack.
The camera panned up, shaky and handheld. Emergency strobes flickered in the background. And there, against the wall—
"Is that—" Yaoyorozu's voice died.
In the background was a woman held upright by a black, jagged protrusion through her shoulder. Her left arm missing entirely.
"Oh my god," Uraraka whispered.
The silence that fell over the Heights Alliance common room was instantaneous. Bakugo's struggle ceased mid-motion at the sight.
"Is it on?" a deep voice fell into their ears."Good."
Footsteps followed. THUD. THUD. THUD. Everyone watched as a hand reached out and adjusted the camera.
The figure that centered itself on screen made several students physically recoil. 'All .. All For One.' Midoriya thought, a chill running down his spine. "Good morning, Japan." The man on screen replied in a menacing yet gentlemanly voice. Meaning because of how it came through the mask. Gentlemanly because of how polite it sounded at the same time.
"I apologize for the interruption to your regularly scheduled panic. My name is All For One, and I believe there has been a significant misunderstanding regarding who is currently responsible for your safety."
The pale, steady fingers adjusted the lens, and the "skull" of obsidian filled the screen.
"No way," Kaminari's phone slipped from his trembling hands, clattering onto the hardwood. "No way, no way, no way. That's him. That's the guy who… who did that to Endeavor."
"But ... How is he ...?"
"That's because it's coming from the Commission Headquarters," Yaoyorozu muttered, her face turning a white. "That's the most secure building in Tokyo. How… how is someone inside?"
"I .. isn't that obvious?" Midoriya whispered as he stared at the obsidian mask on the screen, his mind flashing back to every warning All Might had ever given him. "He took it over. All of it."
On the screen, All For One continued
"For decades, you have lived under a 'Symbol. A fragile golden ceiling that promised you the dark would never return. But as you can see from the smoke on your horizons tonight... the ceiling has collapsed. The heroes you pay with your taxes and your worship are not coming to save you either."
"They are currently either occupied, dead, or .." He smiled beneath the mask and raised his hand. "—Quirkless." A body was raised for all to see. The atmosphere stiffened. "That's .... Endeavor .."
Everyone turned to Todoroki only to see his face as dark as a coal. "Hold on ... Did he just say ... Quirkless?" Mina voiced out with hesitation, wondering if she had heard wrong. The words caught everyone. Todoroki especially.
"... Yeah. But ... That can't be .."
"You heard me." The voice from the Television cut off any room for rebuttals.
"In case you don't know, My Quirk is special. I can take away the quirks of others and use them for myself." He raised his hand and flames erupted from it. Similarly, they emerged from his chest and shoulders imitating Endeavors Hero look.
A simultaneous silence swept across the country. From Heights Alliance, to all of U.A, to the streets of Mustafu and beyond.
"I have done so with every Hero I've currently encountered tonight." The voice chuckled in amusement. "If you don't believe me, you can ask him yourself."
He pushed Endeavor closer to the screen. "No need to keep feigning sleep. I know you're awake, so why don't you raise your head and confidently tell them I'm lying."
"..."
There was no reply. Several seconds passed and All For One finally laughed in response. "This is your Number Two Hero," All For One said. "The Flame Hero. The man who was supposed to protect you when All Might couldn't."
He held Endeavors head and forced it upwards for everyone to see. "Look at him now."
Endeavor's eyes were hollow. Empty. The look of someone who'd lost everything that defined them.
"That's the truth your heroes don't want you to see. Strip away their quirks, and they're no different from you. No stronger. No braver. Just people who happened to be born with power."
The broadcast cut briefly to show aerial footage of the burning prisons. Then back to All For One.
"Tonight, I've demonstrated a very simple truth: your society is fragile. Your heroes are mortal and your Symbol of Peace is ultimately just a man. While I ..."
Endeavors body dropped to the floor. "I am a Demon Lord." All for one stretched his left arm wide. "And this is the story of how I defeat the ultimate Hero."
"My friends out there who have been released by my disciple Tomura, if you seek to join our cause, then you are more than welcome. Seek him out as well prepare to step into the new void era. To the citizens watching this: stay in your homes. Lock your doors. Pray if it comforts you. But understand that the world you knew—the safe, comfortable world where heroes always arrived ... ended tonight."
The man on the screen paused.
"To the remaining 'heroes': consider this your retirement notice. You've seen what happens to those who stand against me. You've watched your strongest fall. If you have any sense of self-preservation, you'll resign before you join them."
"And to you, Toshinori... Or as you're better known, All Might .."
The mask tilted slightly, as if he was looking directly through the camera into All Might's eyes wherever he was.
"You are late. I expected more from a Symbol, but it seems you've become as fragile as the peace you promised."
"I've taken your friends' 'tools.' They won't be needing them anymore." The flames died.
"Hurry now. I'll be waiting right here in the ruins of this building. You know where it is. I would hate to have to see the end of Hero Society without your head to go with ..."
"You're wrong." A voice cut in before All For One could finish. "Huh?" All For One paused, turning to look at Endeavor.
"I said ..." His fingers fug into the mahogany of the conference table. "... You're wrong!" With a guttural snarl of pure, agonizing effort, the man who had been the Number Two Hero forced himself to his feet.
"Oh." All For One's voice carried a note of amused condescension. "You say I'm lying?"
"No." Endeavor spat blood onto the expensive carpet, his one open eye burning with a hatred that didn't need a Quirk to manifest."My quirk's gone. That much I'm sure."
"Where you're wrong is where you think I'm any less without it."
Enji croaked, his voice gaining strength as he spoke in front of millions of terrified citizens watching. "I spent twenty years... trying to outrun that man. Twenty years trying to build a legacy that could stand taller than his. I've never made peace with it. I ..."
SQUELCH!
A black, sinewy rivet erupted from All For One's index finger, punching a clean hole through Endeavor's right shoulder and pinning him back against the wall next to the President.
"Forgive me halting your monologue, but I am quite sick of hearing this speech again. From the predecessors and the sidekicks, and the 'brave little nobodies'. It's the one old thing that's no longer amusing."
Blood pooled from Endeavors shoulder. "Quite a shame. Truly I had planned to keep you alive a bit longer, just to see how wounded All Might's heroic heart would be. But your sudden bout of optimism irritates me." He raised his right hand. Dark, jagged rivets began to spiral around his arm, humming with kinetic energy. "So I think I'll send your head to the hospital where the rest of the heroes are and take their heads as well before All Might's return."
Endeavor smirked. "See you in hell basta.." BOOM!
The reinforced exterior wall of the twelfth floor broke apart. 'Huh?'. 'What The ...' Before the rivets could touch Endeavor, a golden blur intercepted the frame. It moved so fast the camera's frame rate couldn't track it—a streak of yellow and blue that smashed through the sound barrier inside the room
'How ..' "DETROIT! SMASH!"
The impact was cataclysmic. The shockwave blew out every remaining window in the government district. All For One's head snapped back with a sickening crack of breaking machinery, his body launching off the floor and hurtling through the opposite wall, through the hallway, and out the other side of the building. The camera, still live and pinned to the desk, caught the moment of impact before being knocked face-down. The screen for millions of viewers went chaotic—blurs of dust and the sound of the building's structural alarms going off.
Meanwhile, In the skies of Tokyo. Aizawa was suspended in mid-air, his capture scarf wrapped securely around his torso and hooked into Yuta's arm like a makeshift harness. As for Yuta himself, the boy stood on nothing, his gaze fixed on the collapsing floors. Aizawa adjusted his goggles, his hair drifting upward—not from his Quirk, but from the sheer updraft of the wind from the previous collision. He looked down at the drop, then back at the student who was currently treating gravity like a suggestion.
"Akutami,"
"Yes, Sensei?"
"When this is over..." Aizawa tightened his grip on the scarf, his eyes already glowing beneath the goggles. "...we are going to have a very long talk about when, exactly, you decided your quirk learned how to fly."