Chapter 24: The Pride and the Pull
Katsuki Bakugo was not a pawn. He was not a damsel in distress, and he certainly was not going to stand by while a group of masked extras hijacked his battlefield.
He stood in the center of the scorched clearing, his breath coming in ragged gasps. The blue flames of the forest fire reflected in his furious crimson eyes. He looked at the defeated League of Villains—Muscular unconscious in the trees, Compress paralyzed by a psychic teenager, and Dabi pinned down by an unseen sniper.
And then he looked at the Winged Sovereign. The towering, cloaked entity floating effortlessly before him, radiating an aura of absolute, crushing authority.
"I didn't ask for your help!" Bakugo roared, the spark of ignition crackling violently across his palms. "I don't care if you're a vigilante, a villain, or a god! I am the one who's going to be the Number One Hero! I DON'T NEED SAVING!"
Bakugo didn't hold back. He lunged forward, using a massive explosion from his left hand to propel himself at blinding speed. He brought his right hand back, channeling every ounce of his nitroglycerin sweat into a devastating, point-blank blast aimed directly at the Sovereign's silver moth-mask.
"Die!" Bakugo screamed.
The explosion was catastrophic. A massive sphere of orange and black fire detonated in the clearing, kicking up a hurricane of dust and ash. Vlad King yelled out in shock, while Eraserhead strained against his injuries, his eyes flashing red as he tried to erase Bakugo's Quirk too late.
But as the smoke began to clear, the silence in the clearing was absolute.
Bakugo was suspended in mid-air. His right hand was completely engulfed in a shimmering, golden-violet barrier—a localized Aegis Pulse. The Winged Sovereign hadn't even flinched. He stood perfectly still, his right hand raised, effortlessly catching Bakugo's maximum-output explosion as if it were nothing more than a sparkler.
"You mistake anger for strength, Katsuki Bakugo," Nocturne's distorted, dual-toned voice echoed through the smoke.
With a flick of his wrist, Nocturne dissipated the kinetic energy. He released Bakugo's hand, sending the explosive teenager stumbling backward into the dirt.
"You scream that you will be the Number One Hero," Nocturne continued, stepping forward, his black cloak billowing. "Yet you act with the same reckless, destructive rage as the monsters you claim to fight. A true symbol of peace cannot be built on a foundation of unbridled fury. You fight for the spotlight, Bakugo. You fight for your own pride. That is why you were so easily cornered in the dark."
Bakugo gritted his teeth, pushing himself up, but his hands were trembling. The sheer, impassable wall of power he had just hit was unlike anything he had ever felt. It wasn't just physical strength; it was the weight of a King.
Nocturne turned his masked gaze to the bleeding Pro Heroes. "And you, Eraserhead. You expel students for lacking potential, judging them by arbitrary standards, yet you allow the Hero Commission to hoard the true prodigies in subterranean cages. Your society is built on a rotting foundation. We are the ones pulling out the nails."
Aizawa narrowed his eye, coughing violently. "You're a criminal, Sovereign. You don't fix a broken house by burning it down."
"We are not burning it," Giulio Gandini countered coldly, resting his crackling crimson broadsword on his shoulder. "We are simply turning on the lights. And the roaches are scurrying."
Nocturne looked at the paralyzed, bleeding members of the Vanguard Action Squad. "GateL0ck," the Sovereign commanded, raising a hand. "Open the door. We leave this garbage for the police to sweep up."
Rin stepped forward, her hands glowing with silvery-blue spatial energy. "Copy that, Sovereign."
But before Rin could pull her hands apart to open the Sanctuary Phasing, the ambient temperature in the clearing plummeted.
A horrific, suffocating sound—like tearing wet canvas—ripped through the air.
Hidden inside Dabi's coat, a microscopic communication device suddenly melted, reacting to a terrifying, remote Quirk activation. Miles away, deep within the Kamino Ward, All For One had seen enough. The Emperor of the Underworld realized his Vanguard Action Squad was utterly defeated, and the Winged Sovereign was about to claim absolute victory.
"I cannot allow you to steal my pieces, Sovereign," a deep, velvety, and impossibly terrifying voice echoed directly out of the melting comms device, filling the clearing with a suffocating dread.
Suddenly, a geyser of thick, grotesque black-and-purple mud erupted from the ground beneath the League of Villains.
It wasn't Kurogiri's elegant warp gate. This was forceful. This was violent. All For One was remotely hijacking a spatial Quirk, overriding the natural laws of physics to forcibly extract his assets. The black mud instantly swallowed the unconscious Muscular, the bleeding Dabi, and the paralyzed Mr. Compress.
But the mud didn't stop there. It surged outward like a tidal wave, moving with impossible speed, its tendrils whipping through the air toward Bakugo.
"It's taking the student!" Kenji yelled, his silver armor flaring as he lunged forward to grab Bakugo.
But the black mud was too fast. It wrapped around Bakugo's ankle, violently yanking him toward the swirling, unnatural vortex.
"Rin! Anchor the space!" Nocturne roared, dropping the Sovereign persona for a fraction of a second as true alarm spiked in his chest.
Rin screamed, thrusting her hands forward. A massive, iridescent portal of Sanctuary Phasing erupted into existence, directly colliding with the violent black mud.
The resulting spatial clash was apocalyptic. Reality itself began to fracture. The air screamed in high-pitched, agonizing frequencies. Red and silver lightning arced across the clearing as the two opposing portals fought for dominance. It was a terrifying tug-of-war between the elegant, desire-based synthesis of the Swarm and the brutal, artificial hoarding of All For One.
"I will not let you take him!" Kenji grunted, his boots digging trenches into the earth as he grabbed Bakugo's arm, fighting the pulling force of the black mud.
"Giulio! The tether!" Nocturne commanded.
Giulio didn't hesitate. He swung his cybernetic arm, morphing the crimson broadsword into a razor-sharp energy whip. The whip cracked through the chaotic spatial storm, wrapping tightly around the black tendril holding Bakugo's ankle.
"Burn," Giulio whispered, his golden eye flashing. The Crimson Arsenal surged, superheating the energy whip until it sliced cleanly through the dark mud, severing All For One's grip.
Bakugo was thrown backward, crashing hard into Eraserhead, free from the vortex.
Through the collapsing black portal, All For One's velvety voice echoed one last time, laced with a chilling, genuine fury. "You have crossed a line you cannot uncross, Winged Sovereign. The board is mine."
"Not anymore, false god," Nocturne replied, raising his hand.
He channeled a massive burst of violet cosmic pressure, blasting it directly into the center of the spatial anomaly. The kinetic force shattered the unstable connection. The black mud imploded with a deafening pop, vanishing entirely and taking the defeated League of Villains with it.
The clearing fell deathly silent, save for the crackle of the distant forest fire.
Rin fell to her knees, gasping for air, her spatial Quirk entirely exhausted by the clash. Shinso quickly pulled her up, supporting her weight.
Nocturne looked at the empty space where the vortex had been, his heart hammering beneath his ribs. All For One had just officially entered the fray. The shadow war had escalated into a clash of titans.
"Vanguard," Nocturne ordered, his voice echoing softly as Rin's silver portal stabilized behind them. "We leave."
Giulio, Kenji, Shinso, and Rin stepped backward into the starry void. Nocturne lingered for a single second, his silver mask reflecting the flames. He looked at Bakugo and Eraserhead, who were staring back in stunned, battered silence.
"Tell your Symbol of Peace to look to Kamino," Nocturne whispered. "The devil is waiting."
With a swirl of his dark cloak, the Sovereign stepped into the void, and the portal snapped shut, leaving the Pro Heroes alone in the burning forest.