Alright, I'm finally back, which means that the fanfiction has been finished. (One of the chapters still is only half-finished but it should be done by the time I reach it) I'll be releasing one chapter every day until it's been completed; seven chapters in total so seven days. There will be an epilogue chapter as the final story chapter and then two more follow-up chapters, being a final Q&A and a final Author's note. Enjoy.
The past three years had been… messy for Ryukyu. Moving to America, she had tried her best to avoid Hero work. She wanted to live a normal life for once. Without a doubt, she'd be ready to fight the Monarchs when they returned, but the longer they went without incident, the more she just wanted to indulge in her laziness. Unfortunately, her choice in housing, the old apartment Touya used to live in, kept her a little too close to the American Agency of Thomas Andre.
She constantly felt powerful bursts of Mana coming from the building, reminding her of the adrenaline rush she got whenever fighting Villains. Things only got worse when Adam White made an official visit from the American Bureau, asking for help with something.
Just before the Southern Pole Raid, Izuku had asked to see the corpse for Kamish in order to revive him for the battle. During that time, the Bureau also showed him a Rune Stone and offered it in exchange for a contract with him. He obviously turned it down, but not just because he didn't want to be owned by America. The Rune Stone's Skill was poorly suited for someone with his powers. In fact, it would only weaken him as a whole.
But for someone like Ryukyu, it could end up being a powerful tool. The Bureau recognized this and requested her to come in. By this point, they had become fully informed of the dangers of Monarchs and what threat they presented to the world. So this time, they didn't offer Ryukyu the Rune with a contract. This time, they merely asked for her help clearing Gates now and again.
She obliged, of course, but once inside the Gates, she found herself nearly frozen. Images of Tsukauchi's corpse or Dabi being corrupted into Baran flitted through her mind. If not for her Ruler physique, she very well could've died. Everytime, she managed to snap out of her funk and clear the Gate, but that didn't mean she was fine.
Every Gate drained just a little more from her body and mind. By the time the Supermassive Gates had arrived, she was little more than a ball of depression, staying in bed all day and refusing to eat, her status as a host once again being the only thing keeping her from succumbing to basic human needs.
In fact, if it wasn't for the intense energy that Thomas Andre emitted when the Gates appeared, she never would've even known they were there to begin with. As it was now, she stood, almost limply, below the breathtaking size of the Monarch's Gate, waiting for the war to come. After all, today was the day.
"Aren't you supposed to be the strongest of us here?" Andre practically growled at her away from the other Heroes and Shadows, "You could at least stand up straight and have some fire in your eyes… did you even sleep last night?"
"I don't need sleep," She bit back.
"Yeah, the drooping of your eyelids has nothing to do with sleep deprivation at all." Thomas shook his head, "The men and women here… they're mostly A to C-Ranks. Almost none of them are going to be able to truly handle something like this. It would help if their pillars weren't slumped over." He walked back to the crowd, his eyes scanning over the nearly 80,000 Heroes gathered, mixed in with the 230,000 or so Shadows. If the Rulers were right about how many forces the Monarchs had, it was actually a pitiful response.
In the three years since the Antarctic Raid, Awakenings of higher and higher calibers became more and more common, likely due to the intense amount of Mana coursing through the Earth. As such, the National showing of 35,000 at the South Pole could now be trounced by a single country.
It was great, but at the same time, Thomas Andre could only think of how many more corpses it would create. He cast the thought aside as the call, "THIRTY MINUTES!" Was relayed across the army.
Thomas was sad that Kamish wouldn't be fighting with him here in America. After all, he'd grown pretty close to the creature in a weird way. But in Izuku's words the Primordials were the most important part of the war effort and their placement had to be picked out depending on which front needed help the most. They alone could turn the tides and at the same time, they only had three True Primordials to combat the Monarchs' assumed seven True Primordials.
Bellion, Beru, and Kamish were all Primordial Grade, but because they were merely evolved to that point, they alone could not handle a Primordial the same way Nemesis, Scion, or Barbatos would be able to.
No matter which way you looked at it, the Rulers and humanity were at a disadvantage. But really, all they could ask for was a disadvantage rather than a surefire defeat. Without Izuku, or the powers of the Shadow Monarch, Earth would've no doubt fallen to ruin already and this battle would prove it to the whole world.
China:
Izuku glanced at his wrist, fifteen more minutes until the Gates broke. The way things were set up, he was in China, Ryukyu was in America, Mirio was in Germany, Nejire was in South Africa, and Yaoyorozu was in Russia. The Gates in Canada and Brazil were left unguarded by Heroes, Shadows or Rulers for two very specific reasons.
Brazil was giving off the weakest Mana signature, so they deemed it the least important. But Canada… Canada had the largest Mana signature the world had ever seen, nothing even came close. There was only one Monarch who had an army that matched such power. As such, Izuku and the other Rulers deemed it a suicide mission to handle. They would have to let Canada and Brazil be ravaged in order to defeat the other Gates and unite once more to take on the final armies. Well… actually, there was one Shadow in Brazil and it was entirely possible that he alone could hold it.
"My Liege, all forces are in position and prepared to fight." Bellion reported
Around 240,000 Shadows had been dispatched to the five sites that they were handling and would be the world's best fallback.
"Good." Izuku then turned his monologue inwards, "Primordials, be prepared to Gate."
"Yes, my Liege!"
Izuku would've preferred having Igris, Beru, and Tusk at his side as they were, without a doubt, his most relied on and trusted Shadows, but the rest of the world needed them, so he'd have to settle for Bellion, and three of the Ancient Dragons. In truth, even that was asking a lot. As the strongest Being on Earth, Izuku had the smallest force in China.
Liu Zhigang and the Heroes behind him were a little nervous about that, but they also knew that the harder they fought alongside him, the easier it would become. As their defeats piled up, their allies would simultaneously grow.
Izuku looked between all his forces, using Sensory Share, spending a few extra minutes checking on Brazil to make sure the plan was going as expected.
"SIXTY SECONDS!"
Izuku didn't need to be told. He could feel the cracks forming in the Gate as the energy reached a crescendo and the einstein-rosen bridge was finally ready to transport the several million waiting behind it.
The cracks in the Gate began spider webbing even further, breaking until a dark shape emerged behind them, charging forwards and emerging with a great roar as the massive stony body decimated an office building at least a hundred meters away.
Izuku smiled, "I'm glad this was your Gate. There's a promise that I've been meaning to keep… Legia."
The Giant only roared in response, completely taken over by the reprogramming of the Monarchs.
"And there's a promise I've been meaning to keep," A high pitched, girly voice, echoed into the streets. Atop Legia, a girl wearing a school uniform stood, holding two knives glowing with magical energy, "I promised that I would make you mine again Ashborn!"
Izuku's grin stretched wider, "The Monarch I promised to free and the Monarch I want to kill more than anything… in one place? Lucky me." Yogumunt, the Monarch of Transfiguration, was the same Monarch that had sent attacks after Izuku's family and friends and even helped corrupt Legia. Izuku couldn't even think of a better outcome.
"Well we're not the only ones here to see you!" She shouted, gesturing to the still spinning Gate behind her, "Quaresha's too dead to say hi, so her army's here to do it for her!"
As soon as the words left her mouth, hordes upon hordes of insect-type Chaos world creatures began pouring out of the Gate. It was like entire clouds of horrific six-legged beasts.
Izuku took a quick look through all his Shadows. Aside from the one in Canada, he could confirm without a doubt that all the Gates were open. So, he raised his hand and spoke.
"Divine Weapon Trigger 1."
[Armor of the King's Divine Weapon Trigger 1: Domain of the Monarch has been Evolved to its final Stage, World of Darkness.]
The asphalt below Izuku somehow got even darker as his sphere of influence spread out, more than doubling the stats of every Shadow it touched. But it didn't stop at a single mile, or even a single city. It didn't even stop at a country. Izuku's World of Darkness was quite literal in its name and it didn't stop spreading until it touched every corner of the planet, turning over a million Shadows into even more unstoppable killing machines.
Izuku took a step forwards, spreading his arms wide and exposing his chest, covered with his flowing Shadow Armor, "You wanna destroy my planet?! Then… you gotta go through me. Or more accurately," His hands flared out to the sides, Shadow energy creeping down his gauntlets as the monstrous claws expanded, "I go through you."
South Africa:
As the host to Arturk, Nejire would now be classified as a Support type Hero. But as the Russian S-Rank, Yuri Orlov would attest to, just because all you can do is make shields doesn't mean you can't kick some ass.
Hundreds of thousands of beastly creatures poured from the Gate, running past a massive Nomu, made up of pitch black skin, Waruk, the Monarch of Beastly Fangs.
As the Shadows and tanks in the front lines clashed with the monstrous wolves, bears, lions, tigers, and dozens of other animals that didn't even exist on planet earth, Nejire hovered above the center of the army, her hands waving. To an unobservant fighter, she might've looked like she was doing nothing, but to Waruk, she was generating hundreds of spiraling barriers above his forces and she planned on bringing them all down with enough force to flatten a mountain.
He was too slow and noticeable in his bigger form, so he shrunk down, closer to human size and burst through the air, aiming to drag his talons through Nejire's chest and bisect her. Nothing could track his movements at first, but then, darkness covered the ground.
The wind from Waruk's impact was the only thing to reach Nejire. His impact… with Beru.
"You attempted to hurt someone very close to my Liege." The orange energy flowing behind Beru exploded as his fury built to unimaginable heights. He didn't even get this angry when Izuku himself was threatened. "I will tear your pathetic form limb from limb."
"Am I… really looking at a Shadow?" Waruk thought as Beru's anger struck his body. Suddenly, being a Monarch no longer guaranteed your safety.
Germany:
Stellian's army was like nothing the earth had seen, literally. The Monarch of the Iron Body was a strict warrior and his army followed suit. Because of his extreme doctrine, none of his forces had ever been captured and imprisoned by the Rulers. They either fought till death or victory, or killed themselves before being captured.
They took all shapes and sizes, some entirely humanoid, others insectoid, and some were just straight-up aliens. But the one thing they shared in common was the steely exterior covering their body. Any creature that served Stellian, within time, would be subject to the Monarch's blessing and have their body undergo a transformation. They would no longer need food, or water, and their body would become covered in a thin, yet durable sheet of iron. They were the elites of the Monarch's armies.
Because of that, Mirio moved faster than ever before, bouncing around the city of Berlin and flying through buildings to crash his fists into the head of another minion, ending their life in an instant.
He slammed into bridges, dropping entire squadrons into rivers, their metal exterior slowing them to a crawl. They may not have needed food or water, but some of them did require air.
Ifrit, Karkinos, and Striker Eureka held the line on the river pretty well all by themselves, even though they were only Commander Grade. Their size and wide range attacks turned the elite forces into melted or charred corpses or squashed them into a paste. But Stellian wouldn't tolerate such behavior for long.
He leapt through the skies, his fist plowing into Striker's head, decapitating the Titan, his body falling to crush several dozen buildings. The Monarch's attack hadn't been enough to devour his Spiritual Essence, so he would regenerate, but he needed time. "POWER!" And Mirio was there to give him that time.
Aeic was, without a doubt, the strongest physical Ruler. On the other hand, Stellian was the strongest physical Monarch behind Legia, whose power came primarily from his size.
Mirio's punch might've been enough to knock him back to the ground with a visible shockwave, creating some seismic activity in the process. But as the dust cleared, it was obvious just how little Stellian cared about Mirio's attack.
Mirio dropped down to the ground a ways away from him. They now stood in the center of Berlin, two Gods, facing off.
The distinctive SHING of a familiar red blade announced the arrival of the third.
Russia:
An unimaginable number of rounds tore through the air as Yaoyorozu dual-wielded enhanced M249 machine guns. Her Awakened strength just enough to hold them up as her Quirk, combined with Correnic, created bullets inside the box magazine, essentially creating infinite ammo.
The icy forces of Iruit, The Monarch of Frost, were being mowed down by the constant stream of bullets. But even as ten fell, a hundred replaced them, they were too numerous, plain and simple.
Then, the Conduits stepped up, lighting arcing off their spider-like backs by the thousands.
Chaining between targets, each one killed five and they were working overtime to shred the hordes. Well, overtime until they were completely encased in ice.
Iruit entered the battlefield, his smoky body taking on more traits similar to a blizzard, "You will all fall before the strongest Sorcerer in the universe!" His icy winds surrounded him as Momo adjusted her aim up to him, the blizzard swallowing the bullets.
"Oh really?" Three voices asked in unison.
"If your magic is that strong," Tusk said.
"Then surely the three of us," Azrael continued.
"Won't be a problem for you," Hyo finished.
The Shadows surrounded him, their magic powers ballooning as the World of Darkness spread beneath them. Azrael opened her tome, "All will fall before the Shadow Army."
America:
Ryukyu almost let out a sob of relief as she saw the demons pouring through the Gate. She knew which Monarch would be leading them. This time, there would be no escaping, this was the final battle, she'd end it all right here. Abandoning any formation, she grew as large as she could in her draconic form, stomping through the hordes of demons, ignoring the fire that scorched her body as she charged the Gate.
The streets of New York were torn to shreds as Ryukyu prepared to meet Baran head on. What she wasn't prepared for, was the fiery snake that charged through the Gate, large enough to swallow her whole, and it did.
Baran laughed atop it as Ryukyu attempted to break free of the hellish creature's mouth, "You may have stolen my first Primordial, but there's plenty more to choose from in the universe. Now… let's wreck havoc."
China:
One by one, Izuku could feel the Primordials emerging from their respective Gates, sometimes more than one coming forth. Immediately, they began turning the tides, throwing aside Shadows and Heroes alike. So, Izuku did the only thing he could.
"Come Forth."
And thus, the world was once more graced with the roars of the Shadow Primordials.