"Kota!" Izuku finally reached Kota's hideout and as soon as it was in view: he saw the young boy, safe from harm...or at least that's what it looked seemed for that first second. When he had gotten closer, he saw a man towering over the child...and the giant arm that looked like it was covered in muscle fibers currently being swung at him sure as hell made it clear that this stranger wasn't there to protect the boy. He pushed One for All to his current 25 percent limit and saved Kota from the attack, barely missing being hit as well. He knew that if he had less control over his Quirk, the attack would've hit him in some way for sure.
"What the hell?"
"Are you okay?" Izuku asked looking down at the boy in his arms. He noticed the tears flowing down Kota's cheeks and looked at the villain behind him angrily. "You! What did you do to him?!"
"It wasn't to me...that's the guy who killed my parents..." Kota let out between sobs pointing at the blond haired man towering over them. Izuku studied his appearance quickly and noticed the massive scar over his left eye, which was clearly a prosthetic, and a small scar on the right side of his forehead too. Once he took that in, he remembered the news report of Water Hose's death, and even the injuries they left him were matching the very scars he was looking at right now.
"This is the villain that killed Water Hose? What was it they called him? Muscular, right?" Izuku whispered as he put Kota down and hid the boy behind him.
"Hey, I recognize you. You're on the priority kill list. Midoriya, right?" Muscular said pointing at Izuku. "Well before I kill you, I gotta ask: you know where I can find some punks named Bakugo or Kiryuu?" Muscular asked shocking the boy.
'Kacchan...Hayato...what do they want with them?!'
"I'll take that as an: I don't know. Especially considering Shigaraki said you and that Kiryuu kid are attached at the hip, I'm surprised you don't know where he is. But now that that's out of the way." Izuku took a step back seeing Muscular rip off the black cloak he was wearing and watched as his legs began to grow in size. He pushed One for All through his body again so he could counter Muscular in mid-air, but the giant villain matched him in speed and overpowered him in strength: punching him in the air and sending him crashing into the ground. Izuku dug his hands into the ground to catch himself and flipped back to his feet to look at the villain in front of him. He smirked and cracked his knuckles as he cursed himself for not keeping the Full Gauntlet to push himself to 100 percent right now. "Wow, you're tough kid. But I'm tougher!" Muscular laughed as he began to grow further in size and his body began to wrap itself in his own muscle fibers that were now bursting from his body.
'Should I use Full Cowling to lessen the damage to my body? Wait, if I use Full Cowling then if I push past 25 percent I could cause more damage to myself in the end and I need to find Hayato and the others.' Izuku studied his situation, his eyes quickly darting from the villain getting ready to charge, to the boy behind him cowering in fear, and then to the fire and smoke down below. He charged again in response to Muscular and gritted his teeth from frustration. 'Damn it, where are you Hayato?!'
"Damn it, something's up...I just know it." Hayato growled as the three of them looked around for their classmates. They turned hearing footsteps and watched as a pair of shadows came up to them. They prepared themselves to fight only to hear a familiar threatening voice.
"What the fuck are you all doing here?!" They let out sighs of relief as they saw it was Shoto and Katsuki with a brown-haired boy unconscious on the former's back.
"We're being attacked by the League of Villains, Bakugo! Isn't the gas a dead giveaway?!" Eijiro yelled making Katsuki growl while Shoto walked up to Hayato.
"Have you found anyone else?"
"No. But you clearly have." Hayato asked noticing the boy on his friend's back. He looked at him closely and sighed as it came back to him. " That's Tsuburaba, he's from Class 1-B. They're mixed in this mess too, I completely forgot."
"What do you think we should do?" Shoto asked as Hayato crossed his arms to assess their situation. "We have poisonous gas over there and if we continue, we're bound to run into that forest fire."
"Shinso." The purple haired boy turned to look at his classmate. "Your Quirk just needs someone to respond to you for you to control them, right?"
"Yeah, but I can't make them think any differently or make them talk."
"We don't need to do anything else than what I'm planning. This might sound crazy considering we already split up from Izuku-"
"Even Deku is involved in this?!" Katsuki yelled marching up to Hayato. "What, are you two planning on hogging the spotlight again?! I let that shit slide on I-Island but not here!"
"Nobody's hogging anything. We need to work as a group if we're going to live to see the end of tonight, and if that means taking the lead then so be it." Hayato said before a smirk grew on his face. "But, I don't expect you to listen to me. I expect you to give whoever we run into hell."
"Even if it means getting in trouble?" Katsuki responded with his own smirk.
"Given the circumstances and Mr. Aizawa and Vlad King being back at Camp...I'd say trouble is worth living, wouldn't you say?"
"Heh, I like this sudden change in you. Continue saying your plan so we can kill these guys."
"As I was saying: we already split up from Izuku so that leaves me as the only speedster we have since Iida is going back to camp with Ragdoll. We can split up into three teams: Kirishima and Bakugo continue the route that we were supposed to take for this courage test to see if they can spot anyone else from either class. Todoroki and Shinso can cut through here and head back to Camp to drop off Tsuburaba since he's clearly down for the count. I'll go by myself and try to cover everywhere I can to get people out before the gas can do any serious damage." Hayato explained as he activated his Quirk to have his eyes shining brightly again. "Take it easy when you guys go on though...we can't risk running into any traps they might have set up for any of us. Use your Quirks only if you have to, and Shinso if you find more than one: try to make them fight each other."
"But why we gotta stick together, man!" Eijiro protested as he placed a hand on Hayato's shoulder. "You're the fastest person here and we need to hurry up and get out of here."
"And that's why I have to go alone. You guys are all strong enough to take on some villains alone, but I can at least find anyone who's been hit by the poison before it gets to me too." Hayato said before smiling at his friends. "I'll be fine, just stick to the plan and it'll be alright." Hayato said before suddenly taking off in the direction Katsuki and Shoto came from, disappearing with only a cloud of dirt flying up from where he stood.
"Let's play, Midoriya!" Muscular yelled as he delivered a hard kick to the boy, sending him flying into the air before delivering a powerful punch to the boy's left side. Izuku coughed up blood before feeling his face be covered by the villain's colossal hand and be thrown into the wall. Kota watched in horror as Izuku was beginning to be overpowered by his parents' killer and there he stood, just watching this unfold. "Is that all you've got?!" He was responded by Izuku suddenly appearing in front of his face, his body now surging with the green energy of One for All and delivering a powerful punch to his face. Muscular simply laughed and covered it in the last second with his muscle fibers, taking the full force of the attack while Izuku went flying backwards from the recoil.
"Damn it!" He landed on his feet and held his right arm in pain as the attack he had just tried to land held 50 percent of One for All's power while Muscular simply stood up straight and began to laugh.
"Let me just tell you how my Power works before we continue this game. My speed and strength increase with my muscle fibers and the more I push them out, the more power I've got in me. And just feeling that weak punch, I can already tell you're just a weaker version of me!" Muscular laughed in the boy's face, frustrating him further as he began to think of his last case scenario. "How can you plan on beating me?!"
"I don't plan on beating you..." Izuku's near quiet response stopped his laughter and shocked Kota who took a step backwards from it. "I don't care if this is where I die, I'm going to fight you with everything I've got! Because I'm going to save Kota and I don't care if it costs me my life, that's what heroes do!" Izuku yelled pushing his power even further, the adrenaline now flooding his body helping him ignore the pain his entire body was feeling.
"Save him? When you can't even save yourself? That joke is so fucking funny that I'm not even laughing!" Muscular yelled growing even further until even his shirt tore off and now what stood over Izuku and Kota was a giant man made entirely of muscle except for his still visible head. He lunged forward with his arm reeled back to punch the boy with even more power than before.
'I don't care if it's not funny to you, it's everything in the world to me.' Izuku clenched his fists and ran at his opponent, pushing his power to its maximum until he knew it was at the level of All Might in his prime. 'SMASH!' Both fists collided and the sheer impact caused the ground around them to quake and creating an immense burst of wind that sent Kota flying off the edge of the cliff. Lucky for him, once he realized he was about to plummet: something had caught him before he could fall to his death. "I got you..." Kota looked up fearfully to avoid looking at the trees below him to see Izuku holding him with his left arm with a victorious smile on his face. He pulled the boy up and Kota looked at him in shock to see that Izuku's right arm was now covered in blood and completely broken.
"Y-Your arm..."
"I'm going to be fine, but we need to get you back to camp quickly. Mandalay's worried sick about you." Izuku let out a deep breath before kneeling down to carry Kota. But as he got ready to jump on his back, Kota's eyes widened in fear as the dust settled and Muscular stood with a sadistic grin on his face.
"You're fast, I'll give you that. But it'll take a lot more than that weak punch to take me down!" Before Izuku could react, Muscular punched him the back sending him flying into the air before jumping up and punching him again but this time into the ground. "I can't help but find it funny how you think you're actually a hero, kid! You're no hero, you're just a fraud and you'll die that way!" He began to stomp on the downed Izuku's body as he began to laugh maniacally while Kota stood and watched, frozen from his fear. He stopped crushing the boy and lifted him up, laughing as he saw that he was now covered in blood and all of his power was nearly gone.
"What...what is the League here to do?" Izuku asked weakly as he tried activating One for All again.
"Don't know, don't care. As long as I get to use my Quirk all I want, I don't really care." Muscular replied before noticing Kota getting ready to throw a rock at him. "And don't worry, you're next!" This distraction gave Izuku the moment he needed to activate One for All and push it to 100 percent one more time and use it to propel himself free of Muscular's grip. He landed on the ground and make a break for Kota, catching the boy before Muscular could attack him. He got an idea and ran towards the nearby wall, making Muscular laugh and charge at him.
"You're not gonna escape me that easily!" Izuku smirked as his opponent fell for his bait and jumped backwards, causing the villain to punch the wall instead and lodge himself inside of it. "Damn it, I got too excited!"
"I've been running for ten minutes, but I still haven't found a single person?!" Hayato yelled as he stopped to catch his breath, having found no one from Classes 1-A or 1-B through the paths that he had run. He turned hearing what sounded like a boy yelling as well as a motor and took off in the direction it was coming from. Once he got close to it: his eyes widened as he saw Yosetsu covered in blood, being chased by a green man with six arms, the majority of which were made of chainsaws along with a drill and hammer on the remaining arms. But the distinguishing feature of it that caught his attention was the head and the visible brain above it, immediately recognizing it as one of the Nomu his grandfather had told him about.
"This is bad! What the hell is this thing doing here?!" Yosetsu yelled as Hayato noticed that he was pulling someone along with him. "Yaoyorozu, if you're alive: please wake up! It's gonna catch us!" His blood boiled and his rarely shown anger finally reached his peak as he recognized the girl in Yosetsu's arms was Momo, injured and covered in blood.
"I'm sorry...Awase." Momo whispered as the Nomu caught up to them and threw its drill arm and one of the chainsaws at them.
"Awase, duck!" Yosetsu stopped running as a white blur surged over his head, and he watched as his opponent from the Sports Festival appeared and kicked the Nomu in its head with incredible force: sending it sliding backwards. He landed and stood in front of the two to protect them, hiding the cut the chainsaw had left him from his attack. "Is she okay?"
"I-I hope so." Yosetsu gulped in fear as Hayato turned his head to look at the two of them. "Kiryuu, what are you-"
"Thanks for protecting her, I'll take over from here." Hayato gave a reassuring smile to the boy before looking down at his injured girlfriend. "Momo, I'm so sorry."
"Hayato...?" The girl weakly opened her eyes and looked at the fuzzy image of the boy in front of them. "That thing-"
"Is going to pay for hurting you. I don't care if I get in trouble for this." He cracked his knuckles and pushed his power to its hidden limits: his eyes now shining white again as now even white sparks began to shoot from his body like his best friend. 'The power I unlocked during my training with Sir, I hope this son of a bitch is ready to be the field test for it. It's time for Breakneck: Mach Two!' The Nomu stood up and roared at him before charging at him with its arms ready to attack only to be met with a hard punch to the face, shattering the purple helmet it was wearing. It staggered backward as Hayato began disappear and reappear, attacking it from multiple directions as Yosetsu watched in awe.
"You guys sure are something else..." Yosetsu grabbed the arm he had used his Quirk to attach Momo to and it began to glow orange. He let out a sigh of relief as the girl was detached from his arm and helped her sit up to watch Hayato repeatedly attack the Nomu. "That friend of yours must really care about you."
"He's not my friend...he's the boy that I fell for three months ago." Momo whispered as her vision began to clear to see the battle better. They watched as the Nomu out of frustration swung one of its chainsaws at Hayato who simply phased through it.
"You missed!" Hayato laughed as he continued to dodge more of the attacks. He stopped as he saw a shadow begin to grow over him. He looked up and watched as the missed attacks actually hit the nearby trees instead and they began to fall in the directions he was attacking from. He gritted his teeth seeing no way to avoid them and keep attacking so he jumped backwards to dodge the falling trees. But in this moment: the Nomu reached and grabbed him by the throat, stopping him in his tracks. "Damn it!" He tried phasing through the creature's hands onto to be slammed into the downed trees, cracking his back in the process. He coughed up blood in pain and tried standing up, only for it to punch him back into the ground and place its foot on top of him.
"Kiryuu!"
"Hayato!"
"Get off of me!" He tried to phase his way through, but the weight of the monstrosity above him was pushing on his chest, preventing him from catching his breath to do so. He watched as the drill arm began to spin and it surged towards him. His life began to flash in the moment the attack neared him until he reached a memory from the week before at I-Island with Izuku.
'If we can just get back to camp...then Mr. Aizawa can erase his Quirk and capture him.' Izuku took the moment they had to catch his breath and put Kota down as the pain began to surge from his broken arm again. 'I just need him to chase me and Kota...but I'm so tired from training, I don't know if it'll work! Damn it!' He shut his eyes and held his broken arm to try to ease the pain. 'Hayato's the one who could pull that kind of trick off, that smart mouth of his would be able to get on this guy's nerves and use his speed to easily dodge anything he would throw at him. But he's not here...if I had just been able to convince him to come...' His eyes snapped open as he heard the rocks began to shift and Muscular began to free himself. 'What am I thinking?! I can't rely on him! I have to stay here and fight him right now! I have to stand my ground and protect Kota!' He stood up straight and pushed One for All to 100 percent once more, now that their opponent was finally free from the mountainside. "Stay back, Kota. And then, when it's time, run as fast as you can back to camp."
"You're going to attack him again? You can't do that! Let's go, come on! Nothing you've been doing has even landed a scratch on him!" Kota pleaded while Izuku cracked his neck.
"I've still got one good arm and I can pull some use out of the other one...it's going to be fine."
"I'm going to end this now!" Muscular lunged at the two boys and Izuku reeled his left arm back as he pushed all of his power into it. The villain then slammed his hands together, combining all his bursting muscle fibers into one singular attack, as Izuku threw his punch with as much force as he can put behind it.
'Detroit...SMASH!' The two attacks collided once more, creating a powerful burst of wind again as Izuku felt himself begin to lose his footing and his power weakening with every passing second.
"Aw. What's wrong? That was weaker than anything else you've thrown at me tonight!" Muscular gained the high ground as Izuku fell to his knees, still struggling to keep the villain back.
"Okay...it'll be okay. I won't let him get past me! Run, Kota!" Kota looked at the boy in front of him with tears in his eyes as Izuku struggled to stand back up with the force behind Muscular's attack growing as his weakened. "Run!"
"Still looking after him. Oh man, you're something else, aren't you?" The ground beneath Izuku cracked as he began to be pushed further back.
"Shut up!"
"Why couldn't you have just run away?!" Kota asked before watching the muscles in Muscular's legs grow, finally giving him the last push he needed to finally overpower Izuku.
"Show me...your blood!" He slammed Izuku into the ground as the boy struggled to keep himself from being crushed, now using his broken arm as well to keep the muscles from doing so.
'I'm so sorry, Mom. I'm so sorry, Dad. I tried my best.' Tears began to stream from his eyes from fear and sadness as he relived his life at once, the image of the people who mattered the most to him appearing the most. 'I'm sorry...All Might. Hayato, take care of them. Uraraka...I lo-'
"I'm gonna crush you!" Izuku's strength finally gave out and Muscular crushed him, the power of One for All now disappearing from his body. In what felt like his last moments, he relived a memory from the week prior at I-Island with Hayato.
"You know I keep thinking about it and what we did yesterday, was pretty damn awesome. Or technically, two days ago." Hayato laughed as he and Izuku made their way back to their hotel following the party where everyone wished the green haired boy a happy birthday.
"It was. But..." Izuku stopped walking and so did Hayato, turning around to look at his now 16 year old best friend. "It was pretty weird, I could've sworn it felt like we were both using One for All."
"What? That's ridiculous."
"I'm just saying, it couldn't have just been your insane speed behind that attack."
"It wasn't." Hayato crossed his arms and looked up at the tower before smiling. "It was our bond. I didn't want to let you down or leave it all up to you."
"But, you didn't have to do that."
"I didn't, but I still did. Our friendship is the fuel I need sometimes to push past my limits, especially in a situation where one of us could die."
"Don't talk crazy." He looked down at his best friend in surprise only to be met with a smile from Izuku as well. "Neither of us are going to die until we're both old men who can barely walk."
"Can I hold you to that promise?" Hayato chuckled extending his fist forward.
"Always." Izuku responded extending his own fist and meeting Hayato's.
"What the? Is that water?" Muscular stopped his attack feeling something splash him in the face. He turned to see Kota with his hands covered in water, tears now flowing from his eyes as well.
"Stop it...let him go!"
"Ko...ta...?" Izuku asked weakly before feeling a second wind come from the last memory he had seen.
"Just wait right there, I'm going to kill you when I'm done with-" Muscular stopped mid-sentence as he felt his arms begin to be pushed up and Izuku rose from the ground, now pushing his power beyond what anyone could have ever imagined. "How do you still have this much fight in you?!"
"You will never lay a hand on him!" Izuku was now standing tall with Muscular trying to push him back down but the boy's strength continued to grow further as he pushed it into his broken right arm that he kept dug into the villain's muscles. 'One for All: 1 million percent! Delaware...' He opened his hand inside the villain's muscles, tearing the fibers apart and freeing his arm before reeling it back. 'Detroit...SMASH!' He threw his fist forward and tore through the muscles that he tried to use to block the attack and delivered the strongest punch he ever could throw to the villain's head, sending Muscular flying into the mountainside behind him.
"I'm going to hold him to that promise...so I'm not gonna lose to you, bastard!" Hayato felt himself gain a second wind as well as he activated Mach Two again, now phasing through the Nomu's foot and drill as it made contact with him. He rolled out in front of the Nomu and ran way from it, reaching the base of the nearby mountain and taking a deep breath. He turned around one more time and let out his breath before running back in the direction of the Nomu, now running as fast as he possible could in his powered up state as he balled his right hand into a fist. Once the Nomu was back in sight: he jumped forward and threw his punch, all the speed he had gained behind it, connecting it with the villain's head and the impact created a powerful burst of wind that send both Yosetsu and Momo on their backs as the creature's head began to spin. Hayato fell on the ground and held his wrist in pain before the Nomu took a step towards him. He got ready to stand up and continue attacking it, but instead it fell over, now defeated by the boy's subsonic punch.
"Whoa..." Yosetsu whispered before they heard a boom coming from the mountain as well as a slight quake from the ground. Hayato looked up as he remembered where Kota's hideout was hidden and immediately knew a possible cause: Izuku.
"Get her back to camp!" Hayato struggled to stand up and began to run in the direction of the hideout, holding his wrist in pain. 'Please don't tell me you did something crazy.'