Chapter 85: Containment Breach
Denki Kaminari heard a clicking sound.
He lifted his ragged head. The bindings on his wrists had been released.
Wha…?
Rumbling in the distance. The alarm had been going off for several minutes now, muffled by the thick metallic doors that separated his cell from the hallways of Tartarus. But now there was rumbling.
What could that mean?
He knew his master, All For One, was in this prison. And Denki knew that AFO had the Quirks required to escape, whenever he wanted. Does that mean it's time?
Denki slowly, carefully, stood up. He looked up at the corners of the ceiling, where cameras and weapons had formerly been trained on him. They were all sunk down, powered off. Or broken…?
More rumbling, closer this time. Denki felt the ground shake a bit beneath him. What was happening?!
In front of him, the door creaked open.
Denki's eyes widened. Yes. This is it. All For One is freeing me and the rest. He's ready to take over Japan.
There would be a few months of chaos, probably. That was fine. Just as long as the peace and prosperity came afterward, which it inevitably would…
He'll be a good ruler. I'll be happy again. Everyone will be happy, even if some of them may take some convincing. It all starts now!
Denki stepped out into the hallway. The blaring alarm immediately assaulted his ears, causing him to wince. There were flashing red lights everywhere. All the security systems are broken except the alarm? Well, this is gonna suck for a bit. He had no idea which way was the way out. Both directions of the hallway looked the same.
He chose left for no particular reason and started at a jog. His body had somewhat recovered, being fed regularly here in the prison. Those first few weeks...he had been glad for it. But eventually, he grew tired of the captivity again. But I know I don't want to return to being alone on the streets. That's the last thing I want. With any luck, this escape would mark a new era.
He rounded a corner. Ahead of him, a panicked guard was turning in a circle. He spotted Denki and raised his weapon. "STOP RIGHT THERE!" he screamed.
Denki spun outward, pushing himself off the wall. As he predicted, the man's hand was shaking too much to land the first shot on a moving target. Denki closed the distance and punched the guard in the belly, releasing his Quirk.
ZA-POW! The man fell backward, sizzling. Denki kicked the weapon. It skidded along the floor, and he stepped over the guard and kept going.
He passed more open cell doors. Most of them were abandoned. I'm late to the party, it seems. One had a man with spikes on his back, rubbing his eyes sleepily. "What's happenin…?" he muttered.
"You a villain, sir?" Denki asked.
"...No shit, kid."
"The liberation has begun. Find the light and find AFO. He'll have tasks for us all."
Happy with himself, Denki kept moving...but as he went around the next corner, another round of rumbling rippled through the prison.
This time, it was intense enough to make him stagger, clutching the wall to keep from falling over entirely. The whole hallway was vibrating. What is this?! I don't remember Master having a Quirk like this. But AFO had hundreds of Quirks. It wasn't out of the question to imagine that he might-
A strange shimmering filled the hall. Denki's senses flipped. A foul feeling curdled in his stomach. The weirdest noise he'd ever heard graced his ears. It was like a whisper, but as loud as a lion's roar. rrrrrrreeeEEEEEEEEEEEOOOOooooo
He blinked, and for a moment, he saw his surroundings in reverse color. Bile rose in his throat. What the hell is happening? The wall beneath his fingers felt like it was moving. Am I high?!
He stumbled forward, rounding another corner. There was shattered glass scattered around. Two dead guards, blood pooling around them, were slumped against the walls. At the far end of the hallway, Denki saw shadows moving. He blinked, and they were gone again.
A loud scream, a very loud scream, split the air. Denki froze stiff, and blinked again. The alarms had stopped.
This sudden crossing of sound seemed to wash his mind clean, as if sobering him. Denki's paralysis broke, and he took off running.
He leapt over the dead guards, his heart pounding. Something was off. Something wasn't right. But surely, surely his master had it under contro-
Denki rounded another corner, and slid to a stop.
The harsh white light of the hall was gone, replaced with a strange, permeating violet glow. More glass shards were scattered across the floor. And another figure was laying on the ground up ahead, facedown.
Beyond what Denki assumed was a corpse was his master, All For One. Speaking into an open cell. Not just open from a broken door, but blasted open. With a gaping, torn hole in the metal-reinforced blocks.
From this angle, Denki could only see more purple glow coming from within. He crept closer. "Master…" he croaked. For some reason, there was a Quirk pushing at him, making him move in slow motion, as if this was a nightmare. Walking in the glow felt like swimming through molasses. This…IS a Quirk, right? Why would All For One be keeping him at bay?
"Finally!" All For One was saying. "At last, you're all here…I've waited so long."
Denki felt a horrible creeping feeling on the back of his neck. This was wrong. What was Master doing?
From inside the cell, something answered.
The sounds curling up against Denki's ears were not Japanese. They weren't even human. Somehow, though…he understood them, like the meaning was being force-fed to his brain.
Believe us, young Shigaraki…
We've waited longer than you.
He opened his mouth to scream, but no sound came out. He wanted to turn and bolt, to forget he ever experienced any of this. But his loyalty to All For One was winning out, and he was no longer in control of his body besides. He continued taking slow, inexorable steps forward. The corpse was only a few feet ahead of him.
All For One raised his arms and lifted his head, as he often did when monologuing. "I did everything you asked!" he called gleefully. "You are free to roam this universe…and in exchange, I will have Earth as my own."
Hmm, the cell answered. Denki's blood ran cold as ice. "Ma…" he couldn't even get a single syllable out. Master, DON'T!
Did you create sufficient chaos on Earth for yourself? the cell asked All For One.
His master's arms lowered a fraction of an inch. He seemed put off by the question. "Y…yes. Yes, I have. Tomura Shigaraki will wake up today. And other things are in motion as well, things that cannot be undone."
On that much, we agree.
An edge creeped into AFO's voice. "On that mu…what are you talking about?"
Denki's eyes widened. He saw his master take a step backward.
That never happened. Not even against All Might at Kamino. AFO had been many things, but above all, he was brave when he had to be.
You have freed us, and this is good, the voices said. Only…why would we be content with the universe, when its priciest world is right here?
"This…this was not the deal," AFO growled. "You said you'd leave this planet alone, and let ME…"
The voices chuckled. It was a sound of such deep evil that Denki slipped and fell in fear. He landed next to the corpse, exhaling panicked air. All For One still did not notice him.
Are you growing angry, Shigaraki? the voices asked his master. Aww, are you MAD?
"I'm…" AFO took another step backward. There was very little space between him and the back wall.
"Kaminari…"
Denki turned over on the ground. The corpse had spoken to him.
Not a corpse. No, this was a boy, a boy that Denki recognized. It was Doko Katayama.
"Stay back!" AFO hissed. White fire danced across one of his palms. The other arm grew in size, and black lightning coursed through it. He lifted himself into the air, hovering. The air crackled with a familiar feeling, of dozens of Quirks being activated at once.
A flickering shadow curled out of the cell. A probing tendril, swirling about in the violet glow.
"STAY BACK!" AFO screamed desperately. "I…I am the most powerful being on this planet! You will not…"
We will not? You stupid, stupid, pathetic human. We will do whatever we want. We CAN do whatever we want now. This is your doing, and you must pay the price.
"We had a DEAL!"
We don't honor deals with human scum. We don't have to. What are you going to do, cry?
"Kaminari…" Katayama repeated. He was facedown, his voice muffled, but Denki could still hear the panic there. "Kaminari, get up and run."
"I…I can't…" Denki's world was falling apart before him. "Master…master will prevail…he's the most powerful…he'll rule the world…"
Something emerged from the hole in the cell.
A storm of thoughts pummeled Denki's mind all at once. No! NO! LOOK AWAY! CLOSE YOUR EYES! DON'T! LOOK!
He looked, and nearly went mad for it.
A thousand undulating tendrils of shadow were spinning outward, somehow fitting into the space and filling out far beyond it, ever-repeating, like a fractal. Images flashed across the screen of the world. Images of death and destruction and blood. A gaping maw of void was widening in the midst of the tentacles. In there waited rings upon rings of teeth, flashing all manner of colors, and shining with malice.
The creature was beyond any Nomu, beyond any living being on Earth. The creature was the end of everything.
And behind it, there were countless more.
The shadows converged on All For One's floating body like a thousand blades. The man that had once ruled Japan in terror let out a disgusting, garbling sound, half-scream and half-death throe. Blood erupted from every orifice in his body, dark as oil and boiling hot. The ground smoked and shimmered with heat.
The sack of meat and bones which a second ago had been his master fell limply, lamely to the floor. The last bit of its blood splattered.
The creature pulled itself fully out of the cell, and Denki saw its eyes. Burnt orange slits, slices of open reality.
Those slits could see him.
Run while you can, boy, they told him. You're not on our priority list.
Denki's mind was one snap from falling apart. But he obeyed.
…
Chaos reigned around Lady Nagant.
She ducked the blades emerging from the convict's mouth and got in close, bobbing left then right. One punch to the throat and he was down, his Quirk spreading out and stabbing two nearby guards, who had been shouting at them both to stand down.
"Gg-aaAAAH!" one guard yelped, blood spraying out of his mouth as he was skewered against the wall.
"You're a nasty one, Moonfish," Nagant muttered, wiping a bit of blood off her jumpsuit. God, I need a new outfit. "I was sent after you back in the day, you know. I never found you, or else you'd be…" she chuckled and turned away from the unconscious villain, reaching down to pick up the dead guard's weapon. "…Well, you know."
She walked around the next corner of the hall, peeking around with the weapon first. Tranquilizers in this thing. That'll do me no good. She could make her own bullets, but she was still wary of the prison's Quirk defenses. The alarms had stopped, and Moonfish had been using his Quirk with impunity…but what if she was chipped or something? What if there were explosives hooked to her? She wouldn't put it past Tartarus. Or hero society in general.
The next hall was clear, but the one after it had three guards. Nagant headshot the first, got the second in the neck, and rolled as the third one fired at her. She came up smartly on one knee and got him right in the crotch. All three crumbled to the floor. Tranqed. Would prefer to kill them. Should I just risk it?
She heard a loud scream somewhere beneath her, and another rumble-wave passed. Yikes. That's gonna make me puke if it doesn't stop. Some crazy villain was going too wild with their Quirk. If they're not bothering to leave, then I better leave instead.
She passed a cell door that was ajar, and heard a rhythmic bumping sound against it. Nagant stopped and scratched her head, grinding her teeth. Ah, fuck it. She shrugged and pulled the door open the rest of the way.
A brown-haired man half-fell out of the cell. "Sensei!" he gasped.
Lady Nagant sweatdropped. "Were you…banging your head on the door?"
"I…I don't have arms…"
She looked pointedly down at where his jumpsuit's sleeves dangled freely. "I can see that."
"Gotta…get out of here…"
"Well, duh." This guy might be good for something. A helpless looking hostage could come in handy.
"No, you don't understand." The man coughed. "I'm Overhaul…a yakuza leader…I was making bullets that could destroy Quirks…they're here. The ones I was afraid of. The ones who started the disease."
Lady Nagant raised an eyebrow. "What the hell are you going on about?"
Overhaul shook with fear. He gave the other end of the hallway a terrified nod, behind and past her.
She turned and activated her Quirk in one fluid motion, her two-colored hair flipping about as she drew a swirled bullet from it, bringing it down to her elbow as it opened up and unfolded into a sniper rifle.
At the far end of the hallway was a dark creature, crawling toward them. The first thing Nagant thought of when she saw it was a centipede, but even that was a poor comparison. It had more…legs? Arms? Than that. Impossibly fitting them all into this hallway, cramming them in…one got the sense that the creature was massive, infinitely large, but playing with the space around them as a means to reach them. To reach them and slaughter them and eat their brains…
Nagant fired. One tentacle probed outward, and jerked back as the bullet struck it. It made an impact, but the creature barely stopped. It just kept coming. Snarling, sniveling, bending reality around it.
She felt her feet sway. "Okay," she squeaked, lowering her arm-gun. "Time to run."
Grabbing Overhaul by the sleeve and dragging him, they went back the way she had come.
"It's here, it's here, it's here…" he blubbered.
"Shut up! If we can just find the way out, we'll be fine!" she snapped. Inwardly, she was hoping it was true.
The hallway rotated.
Nagant lost her grip on her companion, who screeched in terror as he fell toward the wall, pulled by the shifting gravity.
Nagant slammed her elbow-rifle into the wall, stabbing it and anchoring herself to keep stability. The hallway was continuing to flip, pulling her hair upward and then down over her face. She looked back.
The creature was coming on, inexorable. It had a pair of orange eyes near what she could only describe as the "top", but everything was shifting, like a murky nightmare. Nagant bit her lip hard and tasted blood. I will not let this drive me mad.
She'd heard of Quirks that could alter gravity and reality, but never to this extent. AFO is here, but this couldn't even be HIS work. What is this?!
The creature opened.
In the midst of its shadowy flesh was an opening to the beyond. A shining purple light burned there, like a distant star.
Lady Nagant's eyes widened, and all her neurons fired at once. She got the sense of a burning feeling in her chest. Is this…is this a seizure? If so, it was an unnatural one, because she was totally conscious, unable to look away, her senses refusing to dull.
The hallway tipped backward toward the creature's gaping maw. Nagant stayed put, safely dug into the wall, but Overhaul was not so lucky. He slid downward. The man shrieked. "No! NO! NO, YOU CAN'T LET THEM…"
She reached out to grab him a millisecond too late. Her fingers swiped across air, and the man fell into the void.
The creature let out a rumbling sound. It was almost like a burp.
Nagant laughed madly. "Alright, then!" she growled, bringing her other arm up, preparing to fire again. "Bring it on, you disgusting lump of…"
The hallway flipped violently backward, tipping her away. She was lurched roughly from her position and fell twenty feet to the far end of the hallway. She braced for the impact, and for death…
Lady Nagant bounced off of air.
"…Huh?" she breathed, her hair floating upward over her face, and then falling down again as she bounced against the surface, dribbling against it like a trampoline.
She turned her head. Another convict was standing there, reaching his hand out. The branching hall behind him was dark, but he emerged from the shadows and showed his face. He had a tangled white goatee and long hair.
"Are you alright, madam?" the man asked in a croaking voice. "These things are everywhere! They are cutting off our escape, I think!"
Nagant looked back up the hall from where she'd just been thrown. The creature was thrusting its tentacles downward to their position.
"We can't let them," she snarled.
The man drew his hand across his front dramatically, slashing through air. It shimmered.
As the creature came forward, it stopped, pressing itself against an invisible, stretchy barrier. It roared with rage, and began to tear it to shreds.
Nagant jumped to her feet, and took off down the branching hall at a run. The man followed her.
"You can halt them," she commented calmly, through hard running breaths.
"Briefly, madam."
"Briefly is enough. What would you have me call you?"
"Gentle, madam. Gentle Criminal."
"Okay, Gentle. I'm Lady Nagant. You're going to help me get out of here."
"What's in it for me?"
"You also get to get out of here."
…
They're gone, one of them thought. They were no longer sure who was who.
Behind them, the portal was still open. It would remain open. They had no idea how to close it. But no one, no thing was coming out of it anymore. They are limited in number. They all came out, and there are no more of them coming.
That's a good sign! one of them urged. If they are limited in number, then…
In number, but not in power, said another.
We can't argue anymore.
Then what? Lay here to die? No.
My master…
...is gone.
The remnants of All For One were on the floor just across the way. The leader of the void had disposed of him and taken its soldiers elsewhere in the prison. They could have been to the surface by now, ready to unleash their chaos on the entire world…
There was someone else here, though. My son. He is still there. He is still alive.
Yellow eyes blinked slowly at the boy on the ground. They had combined with the boy's power. That was the only clear memory. The two of them together had synthesized and…
Synthesis.
That's what we need.
Shirakumo, Mikazuki, and the thing that they had combined together to form. Kurogiri.
Kurogiri rose up. They would always be formless, a purple glob, and forever remembered as the catalyst of this catastrophe. For however long humanity had left.
But our power is not spent.
Kurogiri turned and looked down into the portal they had opened. The void was down there, an endless darkness…but at the bottom of that darkness, in its deepest well, something pulsed. With a dull violet glow. Like a heart. A core.
Is that the way…?
No. We could not possibly make it.
And? What else is there for us, but to die in service of the cause?
We could live. Live for him.
Kurogiri looked back at Doko Katayama on the floor nearby.
The boy stirred, turning over and groaning. His violet eyes cracked open. They seemed to pull all the ethereal glow in the area towards themselves, swirling with power.
"Mom…" he croaked. "I can…I can see you."
Can he? Kurogiri thought, disquieted. They were no longer sure what they really were anymore. His mother? A friend of Aizawa and Yamada's? Something else entirely?
"I…I made a mistake…" Doko coughed. "I let this happen…well, so did Dad and All For One, but…"
"They didn't know," Kurogiri muttered, in a choir of voices. "They didn't know, or else they would never have used you. They thought they could control the monsters…"
But All For One never made mistakes. He was my master. I was created to obey him in everything…
And he's DEAD! He's dead and we're alive! So…
"I thought I could control them too." Doko laughed weakly, laying flat on his back, putting his face to the ceiling. "That was my mistake. I never had control. Never ever. Not once. That was my…failure."
"They used you," Kurogiri muttered. "But…we could make that their failure."
Doko gave them another look. "Kurogiri…" he muttered. "Or whoever else is in there. We can't. We will lose. What other option does that give us, other than to give up?"
"Are you dead yet, Doko?"
"Wha…?" the boy paled. Their son paled. "No…"
"Then you have every option of life still left to you."
Kurogiri leaned forward, and gathered the boy in their arms. The monsters neglected to erase our Quirk. Very well. With one last look at the open portal behind them, they prepared to teleport.
…
Stain dashed across a hallway and pressed himself against a wall flat, hiding. There was some kind of fight happening further down. He could hear laughter and screams.
Just ahead of him was an unmarked room. But since his cell had been mysteriously unlocked twenty minutes ago, Stain had been combing the entire prison, searching for a specific type of room. If this was it…
Something exploded elsewhere in the prison. Another tremor shook the place. Must hurry. Stain had never been good in straight fights that lasted too long. As proven by the fact that I was defeated by three kids. If he got out and ever had another chance to make a big public statement, like he'd done right before being captured…he would make sure that was known. That it was three kids who'd defeated him. That boy in the glasses…if we meet again, I'll need to judge him. He briefly earned the right to survive by defeating me, but has he grown since then? We'll have to see. And the child with the green hair…Midoriya. The natural successor to All Might. A similar Quirk and the same perfect mindset. Surely he was doing very well for himself by now.
Those kids have to be the future of heroes. But the older generation is still blocking them, trying to coddle them. I need to remove that barrier. That's what I can do if I get out of here.
Stain made sure the coast was clear, and crossed the hallway at a diagonal, kicking the door to the room open and sliding inside.
The lights were flickering and broken, but a gruesome smile crossed his scarred face. He had come to the right place after all.
All manner of weapons and items were on lines of shelves in here. This was where Tartarus took all the villains' toys. Contraband.
Stain's last name was Akaguro, so he knew his stuff would be near the front. As he predicted, he found two swords and three daggers, as well as the belts and straps he needed to carry them. Perfect. No eye mask, but that was fine. He could find a ragged piece of cloth anywhere.
Time to end my vacation. Gotta get back to work.
He took an experimental lick of his sword, and then carefully edged his way back out of the room.
The coast was clear in the direction he was facing, but then he heard booming laughter behind him. "What's this!" the voice cackled. "First I run into monsters, and now a ghost!"
Stain whirled, holding his sword up.
The man standing there was huge and hulking, with his muscle fibers exposed on the outside of his arms and legs. He had blonde hair and a manic smile.
Stain narrowed his eyes and tightened his grip on the blade. "We're all ghosts here," he rasped. His voice sounded like shit from lack of use. "You're a known murderer, my friend. If I'd ever found you out there on the street…"
"I'd be dead?" Muscular grinned wider. "Is that what you'd have me believe? No. No one can kill me, least of all you."
"Someone captured you easily enough."
The evil twinkle in the man's eyes faltered for a moment. "The kid did NOT get off easy, I assure you of that. I broke his body, but he summoned some kind of manic rage…I'll need a rematch. Midoriya, his name was. He'll be the first person I go to find…"
Goosebumps crawled up Stain's arms. "You were stopped by Midoriya?"
"Him, and two others. The others had weird magic Quirks, so I can't be bothered with them. It's not a good matchup. I need a physical fight." Muscular leered forward. "Maybe YOU'LL give me one!"
He lunged, punch swinging downward.
Stain leapt sideways, and then flipped off the wall, dodging both the first attack, and Muscular's immediate follow-up with his other fist.
All those exposed tendons, Stain thought, weighing his options as he slid backward, dodging and dodging again. I can make him bleed easily enough, but trying to attack may result in my quick death before I can accomplish anything. He didn't just need an opening, he needed a WIDE opening. And he wasn't sure that he would get one.
He tossed one of his knives over Muscular's head, causing a brief distraction. The man swatted it away quickly, though, and brought his other fist around at Stain's charge. Stain had to duck, feeling the tendons zip over his head, and then kicked off the ground, jumping high. Muscular had tried to slam him into the ground with a kick.
POW! The man's foot planted into the floor hard enough to cause cracks.
Stain backed up, twirling his sword in his hand to reset his brain. "You said you ran into monsters," he commented, out of breath. "What did you mean by that?"
"Why do you care?!" Muscular attacked again. Stain slid sideways. The man's fist went into the wall, cracking it in a web. He's getting frustrated, and more powerful. Good, but also bad.
"Something's happening, Muscular." Stain leapt away from another attack. "We were set free for a reason! What's going on?!"
"All For One's ready to enact his crusade or somethin'! I dunno!" Muscular grunted. "He's got weird crazy Nomu all over the place!"
Nomu! Stain felt a shiver go up his spine. He'd defeated one of those before, but it had been weak. And All For One…he was worse than those false heroes. He needed to die, too. I don't want to join the chaos if it means All For One will be on top at the end of it.
Was it worth it? To NOT kill heroes, to keep as many alive as possible to combat the greater threat?
But I can't trust them to do so!
Stain thought of all this as he dodged one attack after another. "GRRR!" Muscular growled. "FIGHT ME, HERO KILLER!"
He swung another desperate punch, right at the spot where he'd cracked the wall earlier. The wall broke into pieces, revealing an empty cell behind it.
Stain threw another dagger, but threw his sword at the same time. Muscular's eyes darted back and forth. He's not as smart as the kid with the fire and ice.
The hero killer jumped up onto Muscular's arm and flicked his third dagger out, cutting through the topmost tendon. Blood splattered across the blade and on the floor. Stain brought the blade up in a panicked rush. Gotta drink NOW…
The other arm came around, and swiped him almost effortlessly through the hole in the wall.
Stain skidded against the ground hard, all the wind getting knocked out of him. The dagger was long gone, clattering across the floor far away.
"Ow…" he rubbed his back and tried to sit up. His body was refusing to cooperate.
Muscular's looming form filled the hole he'd busted open in the cell wall, the only way out. Stain was trapped inside. And he only had one sword left.
"Damn." Muscular scowled. "I thought you'd put up a better fight. I guess you caught most of those heroes REALLY off guard. Whatever, Hero Killer. I think I'll be taking up your title next, once I get out of here."
He took a step into the cell…and stopped.
"Huh?" The man's expression filled with confusion. Stain raised an eyebrow. He stood up, sword in hand.
Muscular was sliding backward, as if being pulled. Sliding out of the cell.
Stain felt a strange tugging at his feet, and swayed. He looked down, then up. The walls were tilting. Rotating. His stomach churned.
The floor steepened. He felt his feet give way, and spun outward, falling and landing against the wall, instead of through the hole in the cell. Scrambling, he got back up to this feet, planting them against the wall as it became the floor. He peered downward out of the hole…and his heart stopped.
Muscular screamed.
"GAAAAH! GET OFF ME, YOU NOMU! YOU…YOU…"
That's no Nomu! Stain's entire body flooded with terror. The thing was consuming his former opponent, as easily as if he'd been a frail child. Thousands of leglike appendages, wreathed in shadow and smoke, were tearing at the man's tendons.
Blood. Blood everywhere. Muscular was howling, screeching in agony. He was trying to pull his Quirk back in, getting his exposed parts away from the creature's probing touch, but it had trapped him, blocked his movement.
Stain could not tear his eyes away. It was the most brutal murder of anything he'd ever seen. The crackling sound of hundreds of pieces of muscle, rrrrrripping in quick succession. Muscular let out one last horrible scream, and passed out.
He fell into the thing's mouth.
Two slitted orange eyes looked up at the hero killer, perched in a hole above it. "Chizome Akaguro!" it called to him gleefully, in an inhuman voice. "Come down and play with me, Hero Killer! We've been watching you, WANTING you, for a long long time!"
Upon hearing his full, given name, Stain had a strange flashback. As a child, he'd loved genre fiction…comic books, sci-fi films, fantasy novels…it was one of the reasons he'd gained such an idealized view of heroes in the first place.
Most worlds are lucky to have just one strange, fantastical thing about them. Usually, that's enough to create a wonderful world. And it was always something different, with each story. Aliens? Dragons? Ghosts? Whatever it was, the concept rarely had to compete with something else for screen time.
Growing up, he'd always assumed that the world he LIVED in had just one fantastical thing about it as well. Quirks. Surely there was room for no other strangeness here, with Quirks being so prevalent.
Turns out I was wrong. The thing beneath him, whatever it was…was outside of Quirks. A whole other concept. A much more dangerous concept.
Stain pulled his sword up to his cheek and pointed it outward, getting into a combat position.
The monster beneath him laughed. "Fight, if that's your wish! It all comes down to the same thing in the end."
The creature opened its mouth again. Stain looked down the thing's throat, and got the sense that it was less of a throat and more of a portal.
The belly of the whale. If I go in there, I'll never escape. He prepared to go down swinging…
…A skinny shadow raced across his vision, closing in on the monster.
"NINE HUNDRED THOUSAND VOLTS!"
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZAPPPPPPPP!
An explosion of electricity cracked the air, bolts of lightning splaying out all over the place.
Stain shielded himself, stumbling backward away from the hole. The creature roared…in pain?
Now! Now's my chance! RUN!
He pulled himself forward again and leapt down out of the cell. As he fell, the hallway rotated again, and he turned sideways, planting his feet into the floor. He was running before he even got a good grip. The creature roared again, behind him. He kept going.
Someone was running next to him.
"Thank you," Stain growled. "Did you kill it?"
"No." A boy's voice, shaky and terrified. "I don't think they can be killed, Stain."
"You know me?"
"Everyone knows you. And if you knew me, you'd probably kill me."
Stain turned his head to look at the boy as they ran. He had long blonde hair, and a ragged, tired face. That face somehow looked…familiar…
"I was training to be a hero," the boy said hollowly. "And I betrayed them."
"Hmm. Maybe I would have killed you before." The creature let out another horrible noise. It was chasing them. "But now…everything's changed."
"Yes," the boy said in a small voice. "Yes, it has."
…
Lady Nagant and Gentle Criminal bounced through the corridors, ricocheting off walls and floors and ceilings.
The hallways flipped around them, forcing Gentle to constantly re-adjust his path. But Nagant kept up, parkouring after them as if she'd been born to it. Or had experience.
His heart raced. Another bounce, another Quirk use. "They're closing in!" Nagant warned.
He'd never used his Quirk so much without La Brava. He was getting tired.
A tentacle shimmied down the hall after them. The creature called in its terrible tongue. "You can't run forever!"
The corridor flipped beneath him. Gentle touched his left foot against the ground and nearly broke his ankle, but activated his Quirk in time, bouncing back up on one toe. Nagant landed after him, and spun in midair, creating a gun from her arm and firing backwards.
Gentle closed his fist and yanked his arm back toward his chest. An air-barrier was created in front of her, bouncing her toward him. He grabbed her about the waist to catch her, and then released her.
"Keep up with me, madam!" he warned. "They will catch you!"
"I know that! We've got to kill it if we want any hope of escaping!"
"You think you can do that with your bullets?" Gentle rounded a corner, bouncing off the wall and then the other. "Unlikely."
"We won't know until we try!"
"We try and we die," he shouted back. Another tentacle was coming from up ahead. Gentle turned, and bounced up some stairs. There were several of the creatures after them now, and they were probably closing them in.
"You're so poetic and proper, aren't you?" Nagant grumbled. "This must be the way out."
Gentle craned his neck to look far up the staircase. It was a vertical shaft type with several crisscrossing flights. He could see the top of the shaft way above him.
"Prepare," he told her, and summoned all his energy for one last bounce.
BOINNNNNG!
The two of them rocketed upward, hair flapping in the wind. Beneath them, a shadowy tendril swiped and missed them by two seconds.
Gentle looked into Nagant's eyes as they reached the apex of their bounce, floating near the top flight of the stairs. She was panicked. He grabbed her by the hands and kicked the air, activating his Quirk again, and sending them laterally onto the stairs.
They crashed somewhat roughly against the wall, and then landed.
Nagant untangled herself from him and got to her feet. "Come on!"
The monsters were coming up the stairs after them. He could hear their rage.
She slammed the door at the top of the stairs open. Gentle's eyes widened. Beyond was sunlight, streaming in through windows up ahead.
They were in the front atrium. The lobby of Tartarus. The surface.
Yes! He exulted.
Two more people were running from another door, to their left. Gentle turned his head to look. It was a young boy with blonde hair, and a tall, skeletal man with a sword and no nose.
"Escaping?" he called to them, as they ran forward, intercepting the same path that he and Nagant took across the open atrium. "Hurry along!"
The man brandished his sword. "Get to the exit!" he yelled back in a raspy voice. "There's one of them right behind u-"
CRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAASSSSSHHHHHH!
One of the monsters burst through a wall, snarling and screaming in rage, its tentacles flying everywhere.
Nagant, Gentle, and the two others all slid to a stop, lined up together. The exit was behind them, but the creature was closing in.
"Four villains of a kind!" the thing snarled. "Two hero killers, two hero traitors, and one wannabe celebrity. What sort of riddle does this make?"
"One that ends in your death!" Nagant declared, and shot her weapon.
The bullet struck the thing in its central body mass, but just ricocheted off. The creature cackled. "It'll take more than that to-"
A huge, swirling mass of purple grew out from the center of the monster. It halted, its orange eyes widening in confusion. "This is…"
Above the orange eyes, a pair of yellow ones appeared. It was a gateway. A gateway with eyes.
The man with no nose gasped. "YOU!"
The portal continued to grow around the center of the monster, digging into its skin, cutting it. The thing howled in pain.
"The crazy bastard's trying to cut it in half," No-nose growled. He spun his sword. "While it's distracted!"
Gentle didn't waste time. He bounced off the ground and attacked.
The thing's tentacles spun out at him, trying to grab him out of the air. But the counter-attacks were half-blinded by the portal the creature was still trying to fight off, and Gentle dodged them easily, bouncing himself around the air.
He rocketed downward to get in close, and a dozen tendrils came stabbing up at him at once. Gentle's eyes widened, realizing he would be unable to dodge in time in that split second.
Then a shot of lightning wreathed the tendrils, and they fell sideways, limp.
The blonde boy had fired it from his fingers. "Go, crazy old man!"
"I'm not old! My hair is just white!" Gentle landed on top of the monster, and raised his arms, creating as many air membranes as he could. "GENTLY…SANDWICH!"
VRROOOOOOOOMMM! The air vibrated as the attack slammed down onto the monster, hard enough to press it down into the floor. The thing screamed, suppressed…
The man with no nose dashed forward, and slashed a tentacle off. A dark, dark liquid poured out of the wound. Gentle turned away for a half-second, and suddenly the monster froze beneath him.
"NOW!" he heard a shout.
Nagant raised her rifle, and aimed right for the thing's orange eye. "Sayonara," she called, sticking her tongue out.
The hair-bullet whistled through the air, and struck right on target. The monster howled and heaved backward, throwing Gentle off of it. He bounced off the ground, negating his fall.
A million tentacles wreathed up toward the ceiling, probing for some respite, a last bit of revenge, anything. Then the creature fell limply to the floor. Dead.
Black blood leaked out of its strange, shadowy, shimmering body, and kicked up smoke as it hit the tiles.
Gentle Criminal backed away slowly, toward where Nagant and the blonde boy were standing.
The no-nosed man had some of the blood on his sword. He spat, and more black came out of his mouth. "Bah. That's disgusting! Might kill me, that."
Gentle's eyes widened. "Did you…drink its blood?!"
"That's how I activate my Quirk," the man said. "I made it unable to move, so the lady could line up her shot."
Lady Nagant retracted her rifle into her body. "You're Stain."
"Aye." Stain spat again, and then looked at the purple portal with yellow eyes, which was still hovering next to the monster's corpse. "I know you!" he called. "You're Shigaraki's babysitter."
"Once." When the portal gave answer, it sounded like several voices speaking together. "You may still call me Kurogiri if you wish, but I am something else now." The yellow eyes looked pointedly at the blonde boy. "Have you made up your mind, Denki Kaminari?"
The electricity user blinked. Gentle thought he couldn't be more than seventeen, as young as the kids from UA that had stopped him.
"Maybe," the boy said. "These creatures. They're related to you, aren't they? They look a lot like you, Kurogiri."
Kurogiri did not answer immediately. Instead, they dumped something out of themselves. Another person, another boy.
This one, Gentle recognized. He was from Class A, wasn't he? The winner of the Sports Festival…grey hair, purple eyes…
…Now that he thought about it, he recognized the blonde boy from the festival as well! Had he been in the class? What were they doing in Tartarus?
"You're the traitor," said Lady Nagant to Kaminari, abruptly. "And you." She nodded at Kurogiri. "You both serve All For One."
"All For One's dead," Kaminari said. His voice cracked.
Stain gasped. "That can't be."
"It's true." The other boy, the one on the ground, stirred and sat up. "He used Kurogiri and myself to unleash the monsters on the world. He thought they would give him Earth in exchange for their freedom. They were locked in a void, you see. And only Kurogiri's Quirk and mine own together could open a portal strong enough for them to pass through."
"They killed him?" Lady Nagant asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow. "But we just managed to kill one."
"One," said Kurogiri. "The others are not far behind. We need to move."
Nagant laughed hollowly. "And do what?"
The grey-haired boy looked at the blood on Stain's sword. "They can bleed. They created Quirks, but as long as they're in physical form on Earth, they can take damage from Quirks as well."
"Well, yes…" Stain coughed. "I don't know how much more of that blood I can have a taste of, though. And besides, we won't be able to win with just this lot. We need…" He stopped himself, as if unsure. As if he'd yet to make up his mind.
"We need the heroes," Kurogiri finished for him.
"The heroes?!" Kaminari's eyes widened. "...No. No way. They'll…they won't…"
"Kaminari," said the boy on the ground. "We have our differences. But you CANNOT possibly think that a world ruled by those things will be better than what we have now."
"But there's no chance left at the best possible world…"
"I know how you feel, boy," said Kurogiri. "Our master is dead. But we're still alive. Forget All For One for now."
Kaminari looked appalled. "FORGET him?!"
Lady Nagant spat. "If it's true that he set this whole thing up, then I'm more than fine with that. He may have doomed us all, and for what?"
"Him, and my father." The grey-haired boy's name was Katayama, Gentle remembered. Katayama stood up. "Their plan couldn't have been more perfect. All the heroes are distracted right now. They have no idea what's coming."
"Distracted with what?" Gentle asked.
"Tomura Shigaraki," said Kurogiri. "He has awakened, and the villain forces are making their move. It's doubtful that any of them know what's going on. They are caught up in their own war. The monsters will take them all out from under their feet, unless we warn them."
"Aye," said Stain. "The monsters can be killed, but we need more Quirks to fight them. We need ALL the most powerful Quirks. And all of those are with the heroes. I don't like it much, but…we've got to bring the fight to them."
"We?" Nagant snorted. "Who's to say my best option isn't to get to the other side of the planet as quickly as possible?"
"They will find you no matter where you go," said Katayama. "You just landed the killing blow on that one. We could use you."
Nagant bit her lip. "...This is a terrible idea, though…"
"Yes," Kaminari agreed quietly. "But it's the only one we've got."
He lifted his head. "I'll help. No better world will get built at all if we don't at least try and fight them."
"We're going to die," Gentle Criminal said flatly.
"Yes," Kurogiri said. "Villains and heroes alike will perish. Maybe even all of us. But we'll die giving this scum the hardest time possible. They will have no easy conquest."
Stain's eyes twinkled. "I'm in."
Gentle sighed. "...Alright, then."
All eyes turned to Nagant.
She groaned. "Fine."
"Alright," Katayama declared. "This all started because I was rudely pulled away from a fight I was in the midst of. We've got to get back there. Kurogiri?"
The portal opened wide.
