Chapter 21: The Crumbling Tomb
The subterranean laboratory beneath the Hokkaido mountains was tearing itself apart.
The blaring, strobing red lights of the emergency klaxons painted the cavernous room in the colors of a nightmare. The air pressure in the facility was fluctuating violently, driven by the sheer, unbridled gravitational output of the monster known as Icarus.
The gray-scaled, six-eyed abomination let out a sound like grinding tectonic plates. It raised both of its bone-white, taloned hands toward the ceiling.
Instantly, the gravity in the room inverted and multiplied.
"Look out!" Kenji roared, the silver armor of his Knight's Vow flaring as his boots physically cracked the concrete floor just to stay anchored.
Above them, the structural integrity of the facility groaned. Heavy steel support beams buckled like cheap tin. Chunks of the reinforced concrete ceiling, some the size of small cars, tore loose and plummeted toward the Vanguard.
"Akio!" Nocturne's voice cracked like a whip over the deafening roar of the destruction.
Akio didn't hesitate. He slammed his glowing palms onto the wet floor, pushing his Quirk past its absolute limits. A massive, blinding dome of golden-violet energy—the Aegis Pulse—erupted outward, encasing the entire Swarm just as the ceiling caved in.
BOOM!
Thousands of tons of concrete, steel, and frozen earth slammed into the golden shield. Akio screamed, his knees buckling under the astronomical weight. The bones in his forearms fractured under the sheer kinetic transfer, but his Eternal Vitality kicked into overdrive, instantly knitting the bones back together in a continuous, agonizing cycle of breaking and healing.
"I can't... I can't hold the whole mountain!" Akio gasped, blood dripping from his nose as the golden light flickered furiously.
"You don't have to," Rei commanded, stepping to the center of the dome, his black cloak billowing in the pressurized air. He looked at the devastating cave-in trapping them, then at Icarus, who was calmly walking through the falling debris, its gravity Quirk repelling the rubble away from its scaled body.
"We cannot kill a regenerating immortal in a collapsing tomb," Nocturne declared, his strategic mind instantly shifting the board. "The Seraph blueprints are deleted. The objective is complete. Vanguard, we are leaving! GateL0ck, open the door!"
Rin stood at the back of the golden dome, her hands raised, trembling violently. "I'm trying! But Icarus's gravity is warping the spatial fabric! It's like trying to tear a hole in a steel plate with my bare hands! I need time, and I need the gravity to stabilize!"
"I'll buy you time," Lady Nagant stated coldly.
She dropped to one knee, her bi-color hair clinging to her face as she aimed her biomechanical sniper rifle through the translucent golden barrier of Akio's shield. She tracked Icarus's erratic, teleporting movements.
Bang!
The high-velocity, hardened-hair bullet ripped through the air, bypassing the falling rubble. It struck Icarus squarely in the right shoulder, completely blowing the monster's arm off in an explosion of gray scales and black blood.
For a second, Icarus staggered. The crushing gravity in the room flickered.
"It's working!" Rin yelled, a small, silvery-blue spark igniting between her hands.
But Icarus didn't scream. It didn't feel pain. Before the severed arm even hit the floor, the flesh at the creature's shoulder bubbled and writhed. Within two seconds, a brand new arm, complete with wicked talons, violently sprouted from the wound.
Icarus locked its six black eyes onto Lady Nagant.
Vworp. The monster teleported.
"Above you!" Shinso yelled.
Shinso had severed his Synaptic Overclock connection to the guards upstairs, realizing brute strength was useless against a teleporter. Instead, he was pushing his telepathic awareness to the absolute brink, trying to read the microscopic electrical impulses of Icarus's bio-engineered brain to predict its jumps.
Icarus materialized inside the upper arc of the golden dome, entirely bypassing the shield's exterior, its talons aimed directly at Nagant's throat.
"Not today, beast," a refined, utterly lethal voice whispered.
Giulio Gandini intercepted the strike. The Crimson Butler swung his cybernetic arm, the crackling, red energy of his Crimson Arsenal morphing from a broadsword into a massive, heavy tower shield.
Icarus's talons slammed into the crimson shield. The kinetic force sent Giulio skidding backward, his polished dress shoes carving trenches into the floor, but the line held.
"Kenji! Now!" Giulio roared over the sound of the collapsing ceiling.
Kenji launched himself off the floor, his silver aura burning like a miniature sun. "Get away from her!"
Kenji delivered a devastating, silver-plated uppercut directly under Icarus's jaw. The sheer, immovable density of the Knight's Vow connected perfectly. The monster's jaw shattered, and it was violently launched backward, crashing through the interior wall of Akio's golden dome and tumbling back out into the raining debris.
"The gravity is stabilizing!" Rin cried out, her eyes glowing with absolute focus. "I've got a lock!"
With a agonizing scream of exertion, Rin pulled her hands apart. Reality tore open.
A massive, swirling gateway of iridescent, silvery-blue light erupted inside the golden dome. The breathtaking, starry void of the Sanctuary Phasing pocket dimension was visible on the other side—a perfect, untouchable haven amidst the apocalyptic destruction of the lab.
"Go!" Nocturne ordered.
Lady Nagant didn't hesitate. She morphed her rifle back into her arm and dove backward through the portal, vanishing into the silver light.
Shinso was next, vaulting over the cracked concrete floor and disappearing into the sanctuary.
"Giulio! Kenji! Fall back!" Nocturne commanded.
Giulio dissolved his crimson shield, replacing it with a localized, rapid-fire energy blaster. He unleashed a blinding volley of red energy bolts into the dust and rubble, suppressing Icarus as the monster tried to stand up. Giulio stepped backward through the portal, his golden eye locked on the threat until the very last second.
Kenji hesitated, looking at Akio. The golden-shield wielder was on his knees, blood pouring from his nose, his arms violently shaking as millions of tons of mountain pressed down on his fading Aegis Pulse.
"Akio, drop it and jump!" Kenji yelled, grabbing the back of Akio's tactical jacket.
"If I drop it, the ceiling crushes us in half a second!" Akio choked out, his eyes wide with terror and strain. "I can't let go!"
Out in the rubble, Icarus recovered. The monster's jaw snapped back into place. It raised its hands, a massive sphere of concentrated, crushing dark gravity forming between its talons. It wasn't aiming for the Swarm. It was aiming for the portal itself, intending to collapse the gateway and trap them in the tomb forever.
Icarus vanished, teleporting directly in front of the golden shield.
Time seemed to slow down.
Rei Arata stepped forward. He didn't have a physical enhancement Quirk. He didn't have a sword or a shield. But he possessed the hyper-mutated, cosmic core of the Winged Sovereign.
Rei raised his hand, pointing his palm directly at the monster standing inches away on the other side of the golden glass. He channeled the raw, unrefined cosmic energy that birthed his butterflies, bypassing the synthesis process entirely, and forced it out as a concussive blast of pure, violet kinetic pressure.
"I am the Sovereign," Rei's dual-toned voice vibrated through the collapsing room. "And you are dismissed."
KRA-KOOM!
A blinding beam of violet cosmic energy erupted from Rei's palm. It passed harmlessly through Akio's shield but struck Icarus with the force of a meteor.
The monster was thrown violently backward, the sphere of gravity detonating prematurely in its hands. The resulting shockwave blew out the last remaining structural supports of the subterranean laboratory.
"Akio, NOW!" Rei roared.
Akio killed the Aegis Pulse. The golden light vanished.
The ceiling immediately gave way. A tidal wave of concrete, steel, and frozen earth plunged downward.
Kenji yanked Akio backward by his jacket, hurling the exhausted healer through the silver portal. Rei stepped backward just as a massive, jagged steel beam slammed into the spot where he had been standing a millisecond prior.
With a sharp, resounding CRACK, Rin snapped her hands together from inside the pocket dimension.
The silvery-blue portal vanished.
In the real world, the subterranean black site of the Hero Public Safety Commission was utterly erased. Millions of tons of the Hokkaido mountain collapsed into the cavern, burying the supercomputers, the shattered stasis pod, and the gray-scaled monster beneath an impenetrable tomb of rock and ice.
Inside the Sanctuary Phasing pocket dimension, the silence was deafening.
There were no alarms. There was no crushing gravity. There was only the gentle, starlit expanse and the sound of six people gasping for air.
Akio lay flat on his back on the silver glass floor, his chest heaving. His arms were bruised a deep, ugly purple, but his Eternal Vitality was already soothing the fractured bones. Kenji sat beside him, his silver armor fading, running a trembling hand through his hair.
Lady Nagant leaned against the invisible barrier of the dimension, her eyes wide as she processed what had just happened. She had just assaulted a Commission stronghold and lived to tell the tale. She was free.
Giulio adjusted his suit jacket, though it was covered in dust, and offered a rare, genuine smile to the group.
Rin dropped to her knees, completely exhausted, but a triumphant laugh bubbled up in her throat. "We did it. The data is gone. The base is buried."
Rei Arata stood in the center of the Swarm. His black cloak was torn at the hem, his civilian face pale and covered in dust, but his eyes burned with a fierce, undeniable pride. He looked at the pieces on his board—not pawns, but kings and queens in their own right.
"The Commission's darkest secret is buried in the snow," Rei said, his voice echoing softly in the starry void. "You have all performed a miracle tonight. But do not let your guard down."
Rei looked out into the endless silver expanse, his mind already calculating the next move.
"We have clipped the wings of the Commission," Rei whispered. "But the League of Villains is still mobilizing. And the students of UA are walking blindly into the fire."