The students rushed to the edge of the roof and looked down. From the dust and smoke below, something massive began to rise.
Metal twisted and fused together. A gigantic monster assembled itself from wreckage and debris.
Mina Ashido stared wide-eyed. "No way… he survived that?"
Tenya Iida looked to All Might urgently "What should we do?"
All Might answered "Nothing. You have already done your fair share tonight"
He stepped forward slightly. "Remember, this island is full of heroes. Leave it to them. Trust that they will win and stop the villain."
——————
Inside the tower, Momo Yaoyorozu felt the structure tremble beneath her feet. Another explosion echoed somewhere below, but she did not allow herself to dwell on it. Whatever is going outside no longer mattered in that moment. Junsei did. She needed to find him.
She hurried down the stairs, descending one floor at a time. She could hear steady footsteps below her.
By the time she reached the 190th floor, she finally caught sight of him ahead.
"Junsei, please wait!"
He did not stop.
"They don't want the secret to be out," he said calmly. "I know."
Momo faltered for half a step before catching up.
"No one should be able to do that," he continued. "Taking alone is already bad enough."
"Take what?" she demanded, frustration slipping into her voice. "What are you talking about? You need to explain it for us to understand."
He answered with a single word.
"Life."
Momo frowned. "Life… again? What do you see that the rest of us don't? Please, tell me so I can understand why you act like this. You murdered someone in cold blood. You risked the lives of people. If I wasn't on that roof, you wouldn't have come to help." Her voice tightened, but she forced herself to continue. "Only a villain, a monster, would act like that. But I know you're not that. So help me understand."
Junsei slowed slightly, though he did not look at her at first. "From your perspective," he said after a moment, "I am bad, even evil. But to me, the heroes you look up to are the monsters. The people you want to save are the real evil."
He finally glanced at her.
"You judge people by their actions toward other humans. I judge them by their intent toward life."
Another explosion boomed from outside. Junsei reached the next floor and stepped into a long, wide hallway. At its far end, broad windows stretched from wall to wall, overlooking the island.
He continued walking toward them.
Momo hurried after him. "Wait. What does that mean?"
"When a human kills something," Junsei said evenly, "life transfers to the human forcefully. Their killing steals from the world and ruins nature."
He glanced back at her.
"When humans die, the life they stole returns to the world."
He did not say 'when they are killed.' as he knew she wouldn't accept such a notion.
Momo absorbed that quietly before asking, "Is that something you can feel? Or see?"
"Yes."
They walked side by side now, the windows drawing closer.
"You have no stolen life on you," he continued. "Most people carry a faint layer around them. Heroes have a significant amount compared to others."
His expression hardened faintly.
"But All Might was a beacon. It shows how much death he has caused."
Momo shook her head. "That… that can't be right."
"I always thought humans couldn't tell or feel life," Junsei went on, as if she had not spoken. "That they took it instinctively, without realizing it. That they have no control over it. But today I learned I was wrong. All Might had some way to transfer it along with his power to someone else."
His voice lowered.
"So how long has this been happening? How much have they twisted life and moved it around?"
Momo hesitated. Her thoughts were racing, but she forced herself to respond carefully. "But… is it that bad? The world is still functioning. And even if it does something, All Might has done so much good."
Junsei asked quietly, "Good to whom?"
She opened her mouth to respond, but he continued.
"To the world? Or to the humans who he enjoys feeling grateful toward him?"
"That's not fair," she said quickly. "All Might isn't like that. He genuinely wants to help people."
Junsei stopped walking.
They were only a few steps from the windows now.
He turned to face her fully.
"If you are hurt," he said, voice steady, "I will not feel your pain. If I decide to cut off your finger and feed it to ants, what would you think?"
Momo stiffened.
"You are alive and functioning. I cannot feel your pain. But I was good to the ants. Am I a good person for helping the ants by harming you a little? Or am I bad for hurting you?"
"This is not the same!" she protested.
"To me, it is."
His eyes did not waver.
"Humans are the monsters of this earth. It does not matter if they label themselves heroes or villains. They are all the same."
"You're human too," Momo shot back.
A faint tension crossed his face.
"I hate that I was born into this body," he replied. "That I have to live among them. That I must watch what they are doing to Life."
He turned away from her and resumed walking the last few steps toward the window.
Momo followed, unwilling to let the distance grow again. "So what are you going to do?" she asked. "Go around hurting people? Risking lives?"
"I don't know what I should do," Junsei admitted.
"At some point, all I wanted was to live peacefully in the forest. Then I thought I found my purpose, but now I realized I strayed away from both."
He reached the window and looked out.
"Seeing the others like that woke me to the reality of my situation"
Momo didn't understand what others were speaking of.
Below them, heroes swarmed a gigantic metal figure, and flashes of Quirks lit the battlefield as they fought to stop it.
Junsei watched in silence for a moment before speaking again.
"Humans fighting humans to take from each other and from everything in this world."
His reflection stared back at him in the glass.
"How do I stop them? What should I do? I can't do it alone."
Momo stood at the edge of the window and looked at the chaos below. The villain, encased in his massive metal body, rampaged not far from the tower. She watched as the enormous monster hero: Godzilla was sent crashing into a nearby building by the villain, turning it into rubbles.
Junsei continued speaking "This is a fake island, there are no animals, no trees. But if this were anywhere else, this fight would have caused massive death to creatures other than humans like trees and insects. Would humans care about that? Perhaps only for the money they've lost, not for the life that was taken unfairly."
Momo frowned, her voice hesitant. "Because we can't feel what you feel. But we know right from wrong. Most people won't hurt cats or dogs for no reason."
Junsei's gaze stayed on the island below. "Yes. Many of the humans kill out of fear and ignorance, but that does not make it any less wrong. Some will listen and try to do better, like Kimi," he said, his voice flat, "others see life and creatures as lesser. When all they have comes from the life they stole… isn't that unfair?"
Another explosion rang out from below. The giant metal monster barreled toward the residential sector, scattering debris in its wake. Momo could not tear her eyes away. "It will reach the scientists' families at this rate."
"Yes," Junsei replied, voice even. "They are too weak to stop it."
Momo hesitated, her voice trembling slightly. "You can help. You can stop that thing, can't you? You are almost as strong as All Might."
Junsei's expression remained unchanged. "Yes. But I don't want to."
"You see people as evil," Momo pressed. "People who take life unfairly. But you can be better. You can help them understand what they are doing wrong."
Junsei's eyes flicked briefly to her. "Okina said something similar."
Momo blinked. "Who?"
"Principal Nezu," Junsei said simply. "But I can also let them kill each other. Fewer humans mean less harm to the world. Humans killing humans… and it has nothing to do with me. Perhaps, centuries… even thousands of years from now, no human would be left to see the sun rise."
As if mocking his words, the first rays of sunlight appeared on the horizon, illuminating the island in gold.
Momo's voice was firm. "This is wrong. The way you think is wrong."
Junsei's gaze remained on the horizon. "Humans want to take. They want to achieve their desires. I want to be alone… and I want the world to be free. Balanced and whole like it was once."
She fell silent for a moment, weighing her words. "I know what you are saying is wrong, but I have no words to convince you otherwise. But please… just this once, help stop that villain before innocents and children die. I won't ask this again."
Junsei's eyes shifted to hers, glowing faintly blue.
"Only this once," he said.
He waved his hand. The glass in front of him shattered completely. He leapt from the tower, propelling himself straight toward the villain.
Down below, the villain had changed. His skin had turned a deep, unnatural red. His eyes glowed a full, pupil-less crimson, and his hair pointed skyward. He no longer spoke. He no longer thought. David Shield's device had pushed him beyond reason. Now he was a mindless, unstoppable force, destroying everything in his path.
The heroes fought with all their strength. But their coordinated attacks barely slowed him, none of them were among the top combat heroes. And the island itself seemed to become part of the monster's rampage. All Might, the only hero capable of matching this threat, was nowhere to be seen.
The giant, hulking figure advanced on the civilians. More than half of the heroes had already been defeated. Hope began to waver in the minds of the remaining few.
Then, a streak of blue and white cut across the sky. It struck the giant's head, producing a thunderous explosion as the metal shattered in a shower of sparks and debris.
For a moment, the heroes looked up, expecting All Might to have arrived. But when the dust cleared, they saw a white-haired boy standing among the ruins, his eyes glowing a piercing blue. In his hand, he held the headless and lifeless corpse of the villain.