….
"Good evening, heroes." he said pleasantly, his smooth voice cutting through the heavy haze of dust and blood–
"I apologize for the mess. I have simply come to collect my property."
Behind the shattered remnants of a concrete wall, Izuku, Eijiro, Tenya, Koda, and Momo had been watching in horror since the moment the Evil mass of being appeared.
The sheer weight of his presence crashed over the students; and the air itself seemed to turn to lead, thickening until it felt impossible to draw into their lungs.
Momo collapsed silently to her knees, clutching her chest as her vision blurred, her body completely locking down under the sudden spike of adrenaline and dread.
Beside her, Eijiro's quirk triggered out of pure survival instinct.
His skin hardened into rigid, jagged stone before his mind could even process the visual threat in front of them.
Even Tenya, stood completely frozen.
His legs, normally capable of shattering the sound barrier, felt rooted to the bedrock of Kamino Ward, paralyzed by a malice so absolute it defied comprehension.
It was true that they had all caught a glimpse of this suffocating aura once before.
Back at the shopping district, when Dabi had managed to provoke All For One with his words, it was only a fractured surge of this dark pressure that had leaked out.
And even then it had only lasted for a mere few seconds, on top of being safely hidden.
But Izuku was different.
He had experienced a fraction of this malice entirely face-to-face at the mall, standing inches away when All For One's disembodied voice and hand had materialised from a black portal.
Yet, even with that horrifying memory carved into his brain, this was far worse.
This wasn't a shadow or a voice passing through a rift.
A complete, physical manifestation of the ultimate villain.
It was everything he had feared, standing less than fifty meters away, effortlessly striking down top-ranking Pro Heroes.
The dark pressure threatened to push Izuku to his knees, his muscles trembling violently under the weight of the aura.
But as his eyes flicked over to Momo struggling to breathe, and Tenya's paralyzed stance, a spark of pure determination ignited inside him.
He had survived the malice of this monster before, and right now, his friends needed him to move.
….
Back at the League of Villains' hideout, chaos reigned.
Even as the Pro Heroes desperately fought to hold the line against the sudden onslaught of Nomus, Tomura Shigaraki and the remaining members of the vanguard were swiftly entrapped by the rising tide of the mysterious black liquid.
"Don't let them escape!" All Might roared.
He and Gran Torino launched themselves forward, kicking off the debris in a desperate, final attempt to shatter the rifts.
But their fists struck empty air. With a sickening, spatial pop, the liquid imploded, and the entire League of Villains was teleported away from the hideout.
Before All Might could even process their escape, the screeching of monsters filled his ears.
Multiple Nomu lunged from the shadows, their grotesque, muscular limbs wrapping around his torso and arms, pinning the Symbol of Peace to the floor to restrain him.
"Get... OFF ME!"
All Might dug his heels into the concrete, throwing his entire weight into a furious, high-speed spin.
"Oklahoma Smash!"
The sheer centripetal power tore the Nomus off his body, sending the monsters crashing violently through the walls and flying completely out of the building.
Outside the hideout, the street was a warzone, but the heroes were holding the line. Naomasa Tsukauchi expertly directed the perimeter while Endeavor and the armed police force continued battling the dozens of surging Nomus.
Thanks to the Flame Hero's overwhelming firepower, they heavily maintained the upper hand. Yet, amidst the roaring flames, Endeavor's expression was laced with a dark, burning frustration.
He had just stood by and watched his own son, Shoto, slip right through the heroes' fingers.
The disappointment in himself and the situation ran entirely too deep.
Deciding to take matters into his own hands, Endeavor burned through the final line of Nomus and marched straight toward All Might.
He had no intention of waiting for orders or entertaining anyone's objections. His mind was already made up: he was going after the League of Villains himself, and he was leaving immediately.
Entrusting the remaining street-level cleanup to the auxiliary heroes and the police, the top two heroes launched toward the source of the spatial disturbance.
While both the No. 1 and No. 2 heroes traveled at absolute full speed, slicing through the city skyline like twin meteors of fire and light, the fierce determination carved into their faces looked identical.
But held entirely different meanings.
Endeavor's driving force was a story everyone knew by now: a burning, unyielding pride, and the desperate, furious need to reclaim his son from the clutches of villains.
But All Might's struggle was entirely different.
Just moments ago in that dingy bar, he had tried his absolute best to stay composed.
He had fought with everything he had to keep his emotions from getting the better of him when he finally met Tomura Shigaraki once again.
Yet, the storm swirling inside him wasn't just heroic anger. It was a suffocating, painful tapestry of different emotions entirely.
He hadn't forgotten, nor could he ever erase the horrific truth uncovered during the investigation into the shopping district incident.
The fact that Tomura Shigaraki was Nana Shimura's grandson.
The flesh and blood of his beloved master.
The revelation still haunted his dreams, waking him up in a cold sweat in the dead of night.
Looking at Shigaraki's twisted, hatred-filled face just minutes ago had torn those wounds wide open.
Even now, pushing his fading embers to their absolute limit as he leapt across the rooftops, a small, desperate corner of All Might's mind was still hoping against hope.
Biting his lip until it bled, the Symbol of Peace pushed the agony down, his eyes locked onto the distant, rising smoke of the warehouse district.
He couldn't hesitate, especially so not now.
….
Meanwhile, at the ruined warehouse sector, the devastation was absolute.
The building had been completely leveled in a singular, cataclysmic explosion. Rumi, Best Jeanist, Mt. Lady, Tiger, and Gang Orca had barely survived the initial blast.
They lay scattered among the smoking rubble, heavily injured, their bodies bruised and bloodied by the sheer force of the shockwave.
From the settling dust, All For One calmly clapped his hands, the rhythmic sound echoing ominously through the wasteland.
The masked man praised, his voice smooth yet entirely devoid of warmth. "To think you reacted so quickly, using your Quirk to manipulate the fibers of their clothes and pull your fellow Pro Heroes out of harm's way before the blast struck. Truly excellent judgment, Best Jeanist."
Coughing up blood, Best Jeanist forced himself to look up.
Through the haze, he recognized the terrifying silhouette, the life-support mask, and the overwhelming aura of malice.
This was him, the suspected ringleader who had been pulling the League of Villains' strings from the shadows.
Despite the agonizing pain racking his body, Jeanist's heroic resolve didn't waver.
But before he couldn't make his move, the counterattack was instantaneous and brutal.
The blast tore through the fibers, shattering the ground beneath Best Jeanist and sending him crashing backward.
Blood gushed violently from the hero's torso as the shockwave crushed the earth around him into a crater. The dust hadn't even fully settled before a feral, blood-chilling roar tore through the ruined courtyard.
Among the smoking rubble, Rumi Usagiyama, the Rabbit Hero: Mirko, was already back on her feet.
She did take visible damage from the attack, but her crimson eyes were wide, burning with a terrifying, manic fury.
To her the League of Villains had crossed lines they could never walk back.
They had dared to target her daughter, threatening the most precious person in her life.
And then, they had kidnaped Dabi's younger brother and student.
Every ounce of protective rage and maternal instinct had coalesced into pure hatred for the monsters standing before her.
There was no way in hell she was letting this bastard slide.
"Hey, you faceless freak!" Rumi spat, a savage grin tearing across her face as she dug her perfectly conditioned toes into the pulverized concrete. "You think a little fireworks show is enough to put me down?!"
Before All For One could even fully turn his head, the ground beneath Rumi violently detonated.
Going completely all out from the absolute start, she converted every ounce of her explosive lower-body strength into pure, unadulterated momentum, turning herself into a white-and-silver blur that shattered the sound barrier.
"LUNA RING!"
She spun mid-air with ferocious velocity, unleashing a crescent-shaped shockwave of sheer physical force from a heel-drop aimed straight at the villain's life-support mask.
The air shrieked under the pressure of her kick.
All For One's hand snapped up just in time, a jagged wall of reinforced bone and repulsion quirks morphing over his forearm to block the blow.
The collision sounded like a cannon firing, sending a shockwave through the dirt that knocked over nearby debris.
"This power explains why Nine had failed in his mission…."
All For One noted calmly, though the sheer force of her impact actually forced his boots to slide back an inch into the dirt.
The mention of that name struck Rumi like a lightning bolt.
Nine!!
.
….
[To be continued…]
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