Cold. That was the only thing Tenya Iida felt as he lay face down on the filthy concrete. He couldn't move his arms. He couldn't move his legs.
Above him stood the Hero Killer, Stain. The man's long tongue rolled back into his mouth, having just tasted a drop of Iida's blood from the tip of his jagged blade.
"A true hero sacrifices himself for others," Stain's voice grated like rusted iron. He pointed his blade at the paralyzed Pro Hero, Native, bleeding out a few feet away. "But you? You left him to die so you could chase a personal grudge. You are a fake. And fakes must be purged."
Iida gritted his teeth, tears of sheer impotence streaming down his face. "Shut up... he's my brother's... he's my..."
"Die, child." Stain raised his sword, the steel glinting in the pale moonlight.
Iida closed his eyes. I was a fool.
CRACK!
Green lightning illuminated the dark alley. A fist glowing with immense power slammed squarely into Stain's face, sending the killer skidding backward across the concrete.
Iida opened his eyes in shock. Standing over him, emerald sparks violently dancing around his body, was Izuku Midoriya.
"Iida-kun! I'm here!" Midoriya yelled, falling into a combat stance. Full Cowling!
"Midoriya? Run!" Iida screamed, his voice cracking. "This has nothing to do with you!"
"Meddling when you don't need to..." Midoriya glared at the recovering killer, his eyes fierce. "...is the essence of being a hero!"
Stain wiped a trickle of blood from his mouth, his dead eyes locking onto the green-haired boy. "A good punch. But you lack experience."
Midoriya didn't wait. He launched himself off the walls, moving faster than ever before. But Stain was a ghost. The killer dodged the Smash by a millimeter, his jagged blade flicking out like a viper's tongue.
A tiny, shallow cut appeared on Midoriya's shoulder.
Before Midoriya could turn, Stain's long tongue lashed out, licking the fresh blood off the edge of his knife. Midoriya's body instantly seized up. He crashed to the ground, completely paralyzed.
He ingests blood to freeze his targets! Midoriya realized in horror.
"Your friend is next," Stain whispered, raising his blade over Iida once more.
FWOOSH!
A massive tidal wave of searing flames erupted from the entrance of the alleyway, forcing Stain to leap backward onto the wall to avoid being roasted alive.
The flames died down, revealing Shoto Todoroki. Frost covered his right side, while flames licked his left shoulder. He held up his phone.
"Sending a blank GPS location..." Todoroki breathed heavily, glaring at the Hero Killer. "You really need to give more details next time, Midoriya. I almost didn't make it."
Todoroki stepped forward, unleashing a glacier of ice that filled half the alley, trying to trap Stain. But the killer sliced through the solid ice with terrifying speed, closing the distance.
"If you want to inherit your brother's name," Todoroki yelled at Iida, shooting another blast of fire to keep Stain back, "then look properly at what you want to be! Don't let your anger blind you!"
Iida's eyes widened. The words shattered his twisted shell of vengeance. He looked at Midoriya and Todoroki, both risking their lives, bleeding for him. What have I become?
Suddenly, Midoriya's fingers twitched. He pushed himself up. The paralysis time... it must depend on blood type! "Todoroki, I can move!" Midoriya shouted, bursting forward with Full Cowling.
"Together!" Todoroki yelled.
Fire, ice, and green lightning clashed against Stain in a breathtaking brawl. But the hope was short-lived. Stain was a monster of pure combat experience. He danced through the ice, dodged the flames, and parried Midoriya's kicks with terrifying precision. With a brutal spin, Stain kicked Midoriya into the brick wall and threw a throwing knife directly into Todoroki's left arm.
Todoroki flinched, his flames flickering out. Stain lunged forward instantly, bypassing them both. His blade was aimed directly at the paralyzed Iida's neck. They couldn't reach him in time.
"It's over!" Stain roared.
Not far from that dark alley, the rest of Hosu City was drowning in absolute chaos.
High above the burning streets, standing on the edge of a water tower, Tomura Shigaraki watched the destruction with wide, manic eyes. Kurogiri stood silently behind him.
"Yes... look at them run," Shigaraki giggled, violently scratching his neck as a building crumbled below. "Forget about the Hero Killer. This is my stage now. Let's see the Pro Heroes handle this!"
Down in the main plaza, the situation was desperate. Several Pro Heroes were completely pinned down by a massive, four-armed Nomu and a screeching winged Nomu. A hero with a water Quirk tried to blast the four-armed beast, but the Nomu simply walked through the high-pressure stream, grabbed the hero by the head, and slammed him into the pavement.
A few streets over, Gran Torino was ricocheting between the streetlamps like a pinball, launching devastating kicks at the pale, muscular Nomu that had attacked the bullet train.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
"This thing's skin is like rubber!" Gran Torino grunted, landing on a nearby rooftop. No matter how many times he struck the beast's exposed brain, it simply regenerated and shrieked in defiance.
Suddenly, the temperature in the city center spiked to an unbearable level. A blinding spear of concentrated hellfire shot through the sky, completely engulfing the winged Nomu in the plaza in a roaring inferno.
"Stand aside!" a booming, furious voice echoed.
Endeavor, the Number Two Hero, marched into the plaza. His beard of flames flared wildly as he glared at the remaining monsters. "If these mindless brutes want to play with fire, I'll turn them to ash!"
As Endeavor unleashed a massive wave of flames to push the beasts back, a lone figure in a U.A. track suit was sprinting down an adjacent street.
Roronoa Zoro was running straight toward the epicenter of the explosions, his hand gripping the strap of the black sword case on his back. The roars of the Nomus and the blasts of Endeavor's fire shook the ground, but suddenly, Zoro skidded to a dead halt.
His boots scraped harshly against the asphalt. He didn't look at the towering flames. Instead, he slowly turned his head to the right, staring into a pitch-black maze of narrow alleyways.
His newly refined Observation Haki was screaming at him. The monsters destroying the city square were loud and destructive, but their auras were empty—just mindless, chaotic rage.
But coming from the darkness of that specific alleyway... was something entirely different. It was a suffocating, concentrated aura of pure, unadulterated slaughter. It was a killing intent so sharp and focused that it made the air itself feel heavy. It was exactly like the pressure Shimotsuki had tested him with, but infinitely more malicious.
Someone is getting butchered down there, Zoro realized.
Ignoring the giant monsters and the blazing city, Zoro tore the carrying case off his back, dropped it onto the street, and sprinted into the darkness.
Back in the alley, Stain's blade swung down like an executioner's axe, aimed right at Iida's throat. Midoriya screamed. Todoroki reached out in vain.
CLANG!
A deafening shockwave of air pressure ripped through the alleyway. Stain's jagged blade was violently deflected, inches from Iida's neck, by a flying slash of compressed wind.
Stain flipped backward, landing gracefully on his feet, his cold eyes narrowing in the darkness. "Who is there?"
Todoroki, Midoriya, and Iida looked toward the entrance of the alley.
Footsteps echoed on the concrete. Click. Clack.
A figure emerged from the shadows. The boy was wearing his U.A. track suit. In his hands were three swords. He smoothly placed the white-hilted sword into his mouth, tightening his grip on the other two.
"You've got a seriously nasty aura, you know that?" Zoro mumbled around the blade in his mouth. A fierce, battle-hungry grin spread across his face as he locked his eyes onto the Hero Killer. "Mind if I cut you?"
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For Advanced Chapters:
Chapter 69 is Available now
The Swordsman's Burden
Chapter 70: Tomorrow, the League of Villains will attack the summer camp.
What do you think their goal is? Zoro, Bakugo, or Midoriya? Find out.
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