….
Dabi stood at the edge of the platform he created.
A few hundred feet below him, the frozen earth was actively ripping itself apart.
To his side, Tomura Shigaraki was collapsing into a complete state of breakdown.
Pinned flat against the frost, the self-proclaimed symbol of destruction thrashed like a wild animal caught in a steel jaw.
His skin was pale, dry skin flaking off his neck as his fingers clawed uselessly at the self-regenerating ice.
"You piece of trash... Worthless extra!"
Blood oozed from his raw fingertips, instantly freezing into crimson crystals on the ice.
"Get off me! I am the successor! The one who decays everything! Maste–!"
Dabi didn't even turn his head, casually flicking his left hand as the last of his patience for the brat's unceasing nonsense finally ran out.
Thwip–!
Ice materialised directly into Shigaraki's open mouth and sealed his jaw shut.
The curses died instantly in the villain's throat, leaving him widening his eyes in raw panic as he was thoroughly silenced.
Up above all this, the press helicopter continued to fight the updrafts, their cameras still broadcasting the proceedings live.
Millions of people across the world sat glued to their television screens, but with distance in between, no one could comprehend the actual reality of the situation.
They couldn't hear the dialogue being exchanged.
Because of that, the studio analysts and news anchors were left making wild, random speculations.
"Is Blue Sun holding the League's leader hostage?!"
Yet, despite the confusing scenarios, several unverified details were finally clicking together in the minds of the public.
Dabi had used his signature blue flames on camera before, most notably at the Sports Festival, but this overwhelming command over ice was something the public had never witnessed.
Strangely, almost no one questioned the contradiction anymore.
After the flood of investigative leaks that had swept across the internet over the past twenty-four hours, the pieces fit together naturally:
The son of Endeavor, Shoto Todoroki's long-lost older brother, and the heir to Japan's greatest elemental bloodline wielding both fire and ice on a scale that shattered every established ranking.
Although the authorities had yet to confirm the reports officially, one truth was already widely accepted.
The Pro Hero rankings were about to be rewritten.
High inside the news helicopter, the reporter kept his microphone pressed to his lips. "As you can see, the U.A. instructor is maintaining an aerial overwatch of the entire battle! The leader of the League is still restrained beside him! Wait!!! The camera is zooming in... it looks like Blue Sun is trying to say something to the audie–"
He wasn't.
Far below, the clash between All Might's assault and All For One's counterattack reached its breaking point.
A devastating shockwave of compressed air and hyper-accelerated force erupted from the shattered arena floor, slicing skyward like an invisible blade on a direct collision course with the spinning rotor of the news helicopter.
From the battlefield below, All Might saw it, and he instinctively tried to pivot toward the incoming shockwave despite All For One's assault pinning him in place.
Even so, he wouldn't have reached it in time, had Dabi's arachnid perception not reacted a fraction of a second sooner.
Before the air blade had reached them, he snapped out his right hand, making a frost erupt skyward, intercepting the invisible shockwave head-on.
The freezing wave instantly crystallized the compressed air itself, transforming the rushing wall of force into a glittering glacier before it came within twenty meters of the aircraft.
CRACK!
The frozen shockwave shattered into thousands of sparkling ice fragments that rained harmlessly through the sky, leaving the helicopter rocking violently in the turbulent winds but otherwise untouched.
Inside, both the reporter and cameraman collapsed back into their harnesses, breathing heavily as the realization sank in that they had been saved from certain death.
Dabi lowered his arm without a word, steam hissing from his skin.
Without so much as a glance toward the helicopter he had just saved, his glowing blue eyes returned to the battlefield below, locking onto All Might.
The blue embers burning within his right iris conveyed a silent command - stop looking away, leave his surroundings to me, and unleash your full power.
The frozen colosseum didn't just shake as the space between the two ultimate anomalies seemed to implode.
It violently buckled, while Tomura Shigaraki's capture atop Dabi's high-altitude perch and the complete evacuation of every civilian from the blast radius left All Might with something he hadn't possessed in years:
Absolute, unburdened freedom.
No longer forced to ration the last embers of 'One For All' to shield collapsing buildings or restrain his strength for fear of civilian casualties, he stood upon a battlefield Dabi had ruthlessly stripped down to only what truly mattered.
"You really did prepare a perfect stage, young Dabi."
All Might breathed as 'One For All' stabilized into a roaring, golden tempest.
Across the fractured ice bedrock, All For One's was wheezing a ragged hiss.
For the first time in an entire century, the Symbol of Evil was backed completely into a corner without a single failsafe.
It was one thing to let himself be temporarily beaten or detained when his pieces were scattered to execute a long-term rewrite of society.
But having his successor, his perfect vessel, taken from his grasp by an unmeasured variable was a failure he could not tolerate.
He was entirely out of time, and he had no backup.
"You've left me with no choice, Toshinori."
All For One hissed, his smooth composure dissolving into a dark, fanatical desperation.
The villain's right side mutated instantly, a horrific, jagged amalgamation of Hypertrophy, Muscular Augmentation, Rivet Stab, and Multiplied Boosters swelling his arm until it matched the size of an industrial pillar.
He drove the catastrophic mass straight forward, aiming an air-cannon drill at All Might's throat.
BOOM!
All Might didn't dodge, instead stepping into the pocket at speed that surpassed the human eye's ability to track.
"ALL MIGHTY UNITED STATES OF…. SMASH!!!"
He roared, delivering his most powerful offensive attack ever.
The sheer force of the collision generated a shockwave that tore a massive trench right through the ice beneath their boots, throwing a sonic boom toward the walls and physically deflecting the tyrant's multi-quirk assault.
True to his word, the Symbol of Peace was putting on a breathtaking display of his prime. Without the constant drain of protecting the civilians or need to restrict himself, he was for the first time fighting to his fullest, against the nemesis of his life.
"Is this the absolute limit of your stolen strength, All For One?!"
All Might roared. His muscles swelled as he pivoted on his heel, using the villain's own forward leverage to drive a brutal, lightning-fast blow straight into the mastermind's chest.
"TEXAS... SMASH!"
The compressed wind pressure from the right straight punched right through the shockwave, shattering the plastic shield of All For One's helmet under the raw force.
All For One staggered back across the ice, but before he could clear the distance, his left side sprouted a series of bone blades, swinging them in a high-velocity arc to sever the hero's torso.
All Might simply blurred through the trajectory, dipping beneath the sweeping blades to deliver a thunderous body blow right into the villain's ribs.
"NEW HAMPSHIRE... SMASH!"
The impact detonated inward, the backlash shattering the structural frost behind them into millions of flying shards as All Might projected his massive frame directly onto the villain.
All For One was launched violently into the air, his uniform tearing into shreds as his body shrieked under the pressure.
Realizing that a straight exchange against an unburdened All Might was a rapid sentence to a second death, the tyrant decided to deploy his ultimate psychological card.
Even if it is a bit risky he needed to fracture Toshinori's mind, to break his rhythm, to make him blink.
"Do you even know who that boy is, All Might?!"
All For One screamed, his voice echoing off the crystalline spires as he stabilized his altitude using an array of levitation quirks.
He pointed a trembling, mutated finger back toward the elevated platform where Dabi held Shigaraki.
"Look closely at his face! That pathetic child you've left in the hands of a Todoroki... his real name is….
"Tenko Shimura….!
"He is the biological grandson of your master, Nana Shimura!
"The legacy you failed to protect–!"
.
….
[To be continued…]
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