Chapter 1

I am he that liveth, and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore, amen; and have the keys of hell and of death. - [Book of Revelation]

With a groan, he clutched the side of his head as the sun mercilessly beat down on him. Groggily, he tried opening his eyes and felt a searing pain coursing through his body as the heat bared down on him. Jolting awake, he scrambled to steady himself on a tree beside him as he took shelter from the sun's rays. He was thirsty and the pain coating him felt like burns all over his body. Wait. Burns. He stared down on his body, feeling it and found himself bandaged from head to toe as he slowly remembered who he was and what happened the day before. He remembers reaching the main encampment of the White-Legs and ambushing their leader, Salt-Upon-Wounds, and killing him. He also remembered the savage's last stand as he pulled the pin off of a grenade and tossed it into a hidden area filled with explosives. He remembered being engulfed one last time in flames as he died from the explosion.

And yet, he's alive.

'How odd. This may yet be another White-Legs trick, fooling me into thinking that I had killed their leader when he is very much alive and torturing me right now. Perhaps… the White-Legs have elected Caesar's Legion's help and was able to bring one of those VR pods from the Old World to Zion?' he thought. Shaking his head at the ludicrousness of the idea, he forced himself to think of another way despite his thirst. 'No. If that were the case, one of the Dead Horses or Sorrows would have heard about it and relayed it to the others, thus reaching me. But if that's not the case, why am I here? How am I alive? And where can I get some water?'

The last thought reminded him of his need to quench his thirst. Looking around the area, he spots an odd pool of water with a yacht, seemingly stranded in the middle. He took no notice of the other details as his body reminded him again of his needs as it threatened to collapse yet again due to thirst. He shambles towards it in a daze and bends over to cup his hands and take in huge gulps of water. He cared not now what the water may be or where it came from and continued to drink his fill. His thirst quenched and his body satisfied, he took a few moments to regain composure to himself and heard someone behind him.

"Well, well. Looks like one of you brats managed to get ashore. Makes my job at killing you much easier."

'Brat?' He looked at the water and noticed his reflection in the water. He looks… different… and younger somehow. Now that he noticed it, he did feel lighter than usual and sprightly at that. No longer did he feel his joints creaking, which was fortunate for him, though his burns were still there. He sensed the man take out a spear-like weapon of sorts and started brandish it over to him.

"Oi. Are you listening to me brat? I said, I want to hear your screams!" the man shouted, swinging his weapon towards him.

Before the weapon made contact, however, the boy in front of him disappeared quickly and two flashed came from him. The man thought nothing of it until he felt it.

Looking down, he found two holes leaking with blood. One on his chest and the other on his abdomen. Fear showed in his eyes as he trembled before the boy as he clutched the wounds to stop them from bleeding. He looked at the boy and saw that his eyes were showing such intensity and ferocity that it felt like looking at death in the eye. With that final thought, he passed out and fell backward, bleeding slowly to his death.

Satisfied with his work, the boy reloads his weapon and holsters it. He was just about to start moving when he heard a rather girly scream coming from the yacht. Turning his attention to it, he saw three other teens like him currently (something that made him want to look in the water again) stranded on top of the yacht and noticed several other people surrounding them. He noted that each had an expression of murderous intent directed towards the teens and knew he had to act fast. Drawing out his weapon, he crept towards a rock that gave him the high ground and aimed.

Atop the yacht, Midoriya, Tsu, and Mineta huddled together to keep themselves out of range of the villains. They had only just regained their footing after that mist villain whisked them to this part of the USJ in an attempt to scatter them all. He looked down in the water to find 10 or so villains sneering and jeering at them, waiting for the right opportunity to strike. Seeing this hesitancy to pounce them all at once, he turns to his classmates and began formulating a plan.

"I count 10 or so villains down there and they don't seem to be doing anything yet. I feel like they're hesitating since they don't know our quirks and are just waiting for something to happen," he said.

"What makes you think that Midoriya-chan? Kero," replied Tsu at the greenette.

Peering again to make sure his guess was right, he replied. "If they knew all our quirks, they wouldn't have sent you into a place with water. I'm guessing they only scattered us in order to overwhelm us while they wait for All Might to appear."

The purple-ball-haired midget started panicking overhearing the greenette's thoughts. "T-t-that can't be possible, can it? There's no way they can beat All Might!"

"Well think about it. They wouldn't be so bold to a school filled with heroes and heroes-in-training if they didn't have a way to beat All Might. As scary as that sounds, I feel like that's the case and we might need to stall them a bit longer so they either give up, or the other heroes come. With that said…"

"Do you have a plan, kero?" croaked the frog-girl.

Nodding, Midoriya said, "I do. Now, I have to know the aspects of your quirks so I can tweak it a bit should the time arise. What's your quirk, Asu- I mean, Tsu-chan?"

"Well, as you know, I have all the abilities that a frog has so I can swim underwater for a period of time, jump really high both vertically and horizontally, extend my tongue, and be resistant to cold, although I can't go lower than -3OC or I'd freeze to death." Then, a silent pause. "I can also secrete mucus from my skin that can be poisonous and spit my stomach out to wash it, but I doubt that's going to be of help."

"Okay and what about you Mineta? What does your quirk do?"

The purple midget popped-off a purple ball from his hair and stuck it onto the yacht's wall. "I can remove purple balls off from my hair and when I stick them onto surfaces, they usually stick around for a good few hours or a whole day if I'm feeling it. If I remove too much my head bleeds."

Silence. Uncomfortable silence.

"Err… I suppose we could use it to capture villains or slow them down… I guess?" Midoriya said, scratching his cheek as he tried to come up with a use for Mineta's quirk.

"See?! My quirk is totally useless for this situation! We're gonna die here and I haven't even touched my first pair of bre- pthoo!" Mineta was slapped across the face with Tsuyu's tongue, and the midget stopped talking to clutch his throbbing cheek. He whimpered a bit as he tried to console himself and not bawl out completely.

"L-look, we don't have any choice right now and help is far from being near us. This is the only chance we have at getting out of here and helping our classmates out. Besides," Midoriya says, as he peeks over the edge to see the villains gathering around as though they were planning. "I don't think they're going to wait any longer for us move and it seems like they're hatching a plan of their own. So, what do you two say?"

The two looked at each other then back at Midoriya. Tsu spoke first as she reluctantly agrees with Midoriya's plan. "I hope your plan works, Midoriya-chan. It wouldn't bode well for us if we got ourselves hurt but we can try."

Mineta, looking a bit a reluctant at first, sighs in defeat as he nods for them to execute their plan. "If you guys are set for it, I'm game for it I guess. Don't wanna get stuck here either."

"Alright, that's settled then. Now, this is what you guys have to do…"

The villains were getting impatient by the second. They all decided that the fishman that could change the pressure of the water be the one to attack first. With their cue, the fishman burst forth a geyser of water and slammed it down onto the yacht, damaging it critically and causing it to sink slowly.

They cheered and whooped at the display of power and swam forward towards the yacht as their prey had nowhere to go. Just then, something flew out of the yacht and a gust of air pressure blasted from it and hitting the water, causing a whirlpool to form. Shocked and disoriented from the blast, the villains scrambled to get out of the whirlpool's current but to no avail as they continued to get sucked into its vortex. In addition to them being dragged around by it, they were suddenly being picked apart from a distance as few of their comrades suddenly started dropping and bleeding in the water. Sheer bloody panic settled into them and what's worse is that, several purple balls floating in the water stuck to them and won't let go. They collided with one another and found themselves in a weird, horrifying cacophony of purple balls, bleeding corpses, and screaming villains as the vortex dragged them to the center, rendering all of them incapacitated.

Tsu lands near the shore and drops Midoriya on the ground but slams Mineta instead. This being that the grape-haired midget groped her while they were in the sky though the midget claimed he did it unintentionally as to not lose his grip. Ignoring the midget's perversion, Tsu turns around and sees the clump of bodies in the middle of the water and almost pukes. Midoriya and Mineta notices this and turns around as well.

"GAHHHH! W-w-w-what the hell happened to them?!" Mineta screamed as he pointed over the water.

"I-I-I-I don't know! I didn't hit them directly so why are they… bleeding?!" Midoriya had to avert his eyes and cover his mouth but failed to keep the vomit from being released from his body and doubled over by the side of the shore. Tsu followed suit as she couldn't keep it either upon seeing Midoriya retch over the water.

Mineta had to look away to keep himself from doing the same. Tsu and Midoriya stayed like that for a good minute or so until they finally stopped vomiting. They panted and drank some of the water on another part of the shore to regain their lost fluids and stared at the sight.

"Who… who could've done such a thing?" croaked Tsu as she stared, terrified at the sight.

Midoriya shook his head as tried to understand why those villains were dead when he never hit them with a full-on collision. Suddenly, they heard the reloading and cocking of a gun as someone approached their position. They tensed and moved quickly, assuming a battle stance, preparing to fight whoever it was that approached them.

Walking towards them, was a teen wrapped in bandages from his head to his feet. He was wearing a bulletproof vest over his clothes with "SLCPD SWAT" on either side of it. He holsters his weapon and stares at the three and began speaking.

"I know you think I am a criminal for killing those men, but I did it for good reason," he said, holding his arm out in a pacifying gesture, as though he was telling them to calm down. "If you could hear me out, I'd gladly explain this misunderstanding." He approached a step forward but was met with a tongue whip in front of his feet.

"That's close enough. Who are you and what have you done with those villains?" said, Tsu, as she narrowed her eyes at the newcomer.

"It's okay, I am a friend." The three U.A. students tensed as they watched the newcomer unhook his gun holster, set it on the ground and kicked it over to them. "I am unarmed and wish to talk to you. Is that alright?"

Motioning for him to speak, the newcomer clears his throat and began. "My name is Joshua Graham. I come to you, bringing no harm, and only to talk. As for the ones I've killed, I believe you've already answered that." When he got no response, he elaborated. "You have called them villains and act accordingly as such. They've threatened your lives, destroyed your property, possibly harmed your other classmates, and have I already mentioned they tried to kill you?"

"Th-that may be t-true, but you had no right to kill them! That's just wrong and-and not to mention, illegal to do so! They may be villains but that doesn't mean they can't change for the better," argued Midoriya towards the newcomer.

"It also doesn't mean they would change for the better. Blessed is the one who does not walk the path of the wicked, but whose delight is in the law of Lord, and who meditates on his law, day and night. Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away. Therefore, the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous." He takes a step forward then continues. "I will not stand idly by while I see the innocent and defenseless be slaughtered without mercy. I have seen too much, too many killed without thought. The old, the young, the sick. You wouldn't understand."

Unease permeated in the air. Who was this guy? And what kind of things did he experience to make him feel this way about certain people? They tried to think of something to say to make the bandaged teen calm down or prove him wrong but couldn't find the words to say so.

Sighing, Joshua picked up his gun once more and attached it to his belt. The three tensed as they anticipated his attack, but it never came. A bone-crunching noise was heard in a distance and the four turned towards its direction. Joshua started moving towards it as he called out at the three.

"Look, I understand your hesitancy to take a life. I get it. But what will you do when that time comes? Will you cry? Will you run away? Will you let them kill you? When our Lord entered the temple and found it polluted with money changers and beasts, he did not cry, he did not wail, nor did he walk away upon seeing it. He drove them out. And likewise, you should do the same." He turned around and continued walking in the direction of the sound. "You can come with me and deliver God's wrath among the dissolute or you can stay here and cower in fear of being helpless." And with that, he was gone.

The three looked at each other and reluctantly followed Joshua towards his destination. They agreed mentally that it would be the best course of action to keep the bandaged boy in their line of sight and restrain him should he cross the line. They followed him until they reached the main plaza and what they saw made them stand on edge.

There in the central plaza, their teacher, Shota Aizawa, was pinned down by a weird-looking bird mutant and was currently breaking his arm. The students watched in horror as their teacher's arm was broken like a twig as he screamed between his grit teeth. The monster then grabbed their teachers head and repeatedly slammed it down on the ground, breaking his face and painting the ground red.

They heard a cackle nearby and saw a villain with hands all over his upper limbs and face enjoying the sight before him.

"Hahahah! How do you like the 'Anti-Symbol of Peace' hm, Eraser Head? A bioengineered supermutant that can take All Might and even a handful of pros! Isn't that exciting? I get to see you bleed on the ground as you're completely overwhelmed by sheer strength." The villain cackles some more before he was interrupted by another villain who seemed to be his accomplice.

"Shigaraki Tomura. Please, get a hold of yourself. Your mental health is concerning me a bit," it said. Out appeared the mist villain as he took the form of a misty butler. The hand villain now known as Shigaraki turns to his accomplice and frowns in annoyance.

"Just as I was getting excited for the main event. Have you already scattered the students and killed Thirteen, Kurogiri?" the young man asked, almost snappily.

Kurogiri hung his head in defeat as he told of his objective's status. "Thirteen has been incapacitated and the students were scattered. Unfortunately, one had managed to slip through and got out." The last statement made the pale man seethe in anger.

"If you hadn't been our way of out here, Kurogiri, I would've turned you into dust!" he exclaims, scratching his neck furiously as a clear sign of displeasure. "Here I thought I could test the Nomu against All Might. Hmph, whatever. Seems like we can't finish this level. Let's go leave already."

The three students huffed a sigh of relief upon hearing this but not Joshua. He sensed something coming from a mile away and turned his gun towards the three students' direction. And just as he expected, two arms stretched out from an inky portal and slowly closing in the distance between Midoriya and Tsu.

"Before we leave, let's hurt some of his pride, shall we?" said the villain, smiling menacingly.

The hands never made contact with their heads. Instead, they were splashed by spurts of blood and the hands retracted back to the portal. Screams could be heard from the plaza across the facility. The first set of screams came from Midoriya, Tsu, and Mineta while the second set of screams were from Shigaraki as the bullet fired on his arms passed through it, leaving behind two holes spurting out blood violently.

"GAAHHHH! GAAHHH! Kurogiri! KUROGIRIIIII!" the villain screamed as panic seeped into his mind as the wounds wouldn't stop spurting blood out even if he held against them. He felt himself losing consciousness as his accomplice tried his best to use his quirk and bandages to seal the wounds properly and stop the bleeding. Shigaraki lost consciousness due to lack of blood and Kurogiri slightly panicked upon seeing that the young man was not waking up. He'd have to retreat for now. Realizing that they had lost and were not able to secure their objective this time around, he opens a portal for him, Shigaraki, and the beast and enter through it, retreating just in time as the doors to the USJ burst open.

"FEAR NOT STUDENTS. FOR I AM… HERE?" The Symbol of Peace's angry expression was replaced with confusion when he noticed that several of the villains were already taken out and the supposed ringleader was nowhere to be found. Nonetheless, his presence struck awe and fear into the hearts of students and villains alike.

"N-no way. All Might is here!"

"We're saved!"

"Late as usual, All Might," muttered Aizawa through his half-consciousness.

The villains debated whether they should charge right in and take All Might out or surrender peacefully to avoid getting injured.

"Dammit, just when that ringleader of ours isn't here!"

"What the hell are you talking about? There's more of us and only one of 'im. So, let's go kill him!"

"You don't quite understand, do you? That's All Might! The Number Hero in all of Japan. He can fight us all at once!"

"Yeah? But there's one of him and several of us. Let's kill 'im!"

"You see, I don't understand how you don't understand what I'm laying out for you. He took out most of Japan's organized crime in his prime and even if he is old now, he can still beat us six ways till Sunday!"

"Oh yeah! The Syndicate Crime Family of the Kuro Hari. Let's kill him!" The villain's stupid confidence roused some of the other weak-willed villains as they started gathering around him.

"No no no, you don't understand. I once saw him take down a villain like us that's twice our size with no sweat."

"Oh yeah! Goliath the Titan! Yeah, let's kill him!"

"See, I don't think you're quite picking up what I'm putting down. I once heard that he defeated a powerful villain that can steal quirks and use them all at once! He's that powerful!"

"A villain that can steal quirks and use them all at once? Yeah, let's kill 'im!" The chanting of the other villains grew louder and louder by the second and the other villain was starting to feel pressured about it.

"Oh… I… I don't know. I don't think it's a good idea." "Hey! There's several of us and there's one of 'im!" "But there were hundreds of powerful quirk users in that crime family!"

"Hey!" the villain said, smacking the other villain. "What are we?"

"We're villains." "And what do villains do?" The other villain, seemingly in a trance, suddenly said, "We kill people." The villain then chanted a rousing war cry as he said, "So… LET'S. GO. KILL HIM!"

"YEAHH!" "RAAAHHHH" "DIE ALL MIGHT!"

The villains charged forward in unison, throwing all that they had at All Might. Unfortunately for them, All Might could definitely beat them six days till Sunday, and they were all defeated in one swift motion.

"Argh… that was… a mistake…" "I don't understand… there were several of us and one of him" "but he's All Might, isn't he?" "…yeah"

All Might sweatdropped at the conversation the villains had. Never in his life did he have to endure suffering listening in to a villain's conversation. Thank God it's over though. He moved towards where Aizawa was lying down and apologized for his delay. The scruffy man only grunted a bit as the Symbol of Peace carried him, taking note of his broken arm. He looked around the area to see if there were any others who were caught in the crossfire and found none other than his apprentice and his two classmates. Er, three? There was another boy with them, and he had full-on bandages around his body. He must've been hurt by the villains while he dawdled elsewhere. He clenched his teeth as he took-in the irresponsibility of his actions earlier in the morning. Had he had more time to fight, nobody would've gotten hurt.

"Young Midoriya. I'm glad to see that you are not severely hurt. What happened to your hand?" the blonde man asked.

"I-I had to use my quirk to defend ourselves from the villains that attacked us in the water zone." Then he paled, something that All Might took notice of. He also noticed that the other two students also paled when Midoriya mentioned it.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

Unsure and uneasy of what to say, Midoriya said, panic etched onto his face. "I d-don't… I-I c-can't…" then clasped over his mouth as he felt the vomit rise from his throat and into his mouth.

Tsu took over from Midoriya's explanation and had to keep herself from vomiting too, though much more successful than Midoriya was. "You should see it for yourself, All Might-sensei. And I think you should notify the cops of him."

All Might looked at where Tsu was pointing at and saw that the bandaged boy was restrained. He speculated that this boy might have something to do with his students' reactions. But first, he had to secure the wounded.

"All right, I'll go over there now and see what it's all about. But you three should bring Aizawa up the stairs to safety. The other teachers will be here soon and I see that you've already incapacitated most of the villains. As for you," he said, turning towards Joshua. "Make sure he gets to the infirmary. He may have been hurt in the battle. I'll also notify the police when they get here." Receiving a nod from his students, they walked away while keeping their distance away from the bandaged boy.

'What could they have seen that caused them to react like that? And that boy, why does he have such intensity in his eyes?' All Might thought. He walked over towards the area where his student pointed him to, and the sight caused him to grimace.

There, in the middle of the water, was an amalgamation of screaming villains attached to what seemed like corpses of villains just floating around in the water. He guessed that the purple balls attached to them were from Mineta but what caused the villains to die? The blood was red near the place where the villains were so he wondered if they bled out before dying. He jumped into the water and dragged the villains to the shore and tried to pry them off but to no avail. Guess he has to wait until the others arrive and right on cue too. He heard voices coming his way and hollered out to them to get their attention.

Soon enough, the pro hero Snipe and Midnight came into view and saw what All Might was beside of. In their experience as pro heroes, they've seen horrifying things done by one person to another so when they saw what it was, they managed to keep themselves together and inspected it.

"What in tarnation is this?" Snipe said, as he poked at one of the villains, who begged him to be released.

"Looks like they got captured by someone's quirk. One of your students All Might?" inquired Midnight, turning towards the buff man.

"Indeed. The purple balls are Young Mineta's quirk. As for the dead villains," he said, pointing at one of the wounds. "Killed by gunshot wounds. Got caught up in the restraint and bled to death while attached to their comrades. Nasty sight."

The R-rated pro hero hummed in agreement as she tried to pry one of the villains off but to no avail too. She decided against knocking out the villains with her quirk seeing as they're hanging around with no support. "Any idea who could've done this?"

"My bet is that gunslingin' lad back up top. Had a gun on him too so he could be a possible suspect." He inspected the locations of the bullet holes and had to whistle in amazement. "And a good shot too. All of them bullets hit them vital spots, so these poor sods were dead before long."

Midnight bonked Snipe on the head. Clearly, she did not appreciate the gunman's appreciation for bullet locations on dead bodies.

"If that's the case, I can only hope that the boy killed them for self-defense and not some sick form of judgement just like what most vigilantes have. It would be bad if word of this gets out. That boy a student of ours in U.A.?" asked Snipe.

"No. I don't think he is. I don't even remember seeing him until now," said All Might while shaking his head. "If anything, he might have been with the villains and brought as cannon fodder for their exploits and was planning to be turned into a meat shield until this. It sickens me that there are people who would use children for their selfish gains," the buff man said, clenching his fists and gritting his teeth.

Midnight put a hand on the hero's shoulder and looked at him with concern. "It's okay now. He'll be safe with us. We'll find a way for him to not turn into these freaks."

"I heard that!" a fish-faced villain snapped.

"Shut up," said Midnight as she whacked the villain by the neck, knocking him out. Turning towards All Might, she asked, "What now?"

"For now, we ensure the safety of the students and round up the remaining villains. One of them is bound to cough up some information regarding their ringleader and the students might have seen who it was. Better ask the boy in the bandages too."

The two nodded and proceeded to help All Might carefully move the amalgamation to the top of the stairs as to not crush the villains who were alive under the weight of the others.

One thought passed through their minds.

'Who are you?'

And that's it lads. Rewritten chapter 1 is here. I took into consideration most of your reviews back at the old version of this story and hope that you enjoyed it.

Now that I wrote this, I remembered what I forgot to ask back in the Author's Note of the old story. My idea for that one was to bring Caesar and his Legion into BNHA as well but on the side of the villain team. Unfortunately for me, I have no clue how to create a functioning Legion in the BNHA world considering they were made due to a need of civilization. As you all know, in BNHA, society is up and running and having to integrate a new one is a bit difficult for me. With that said, I could use some of your thoughts on whether I should add Caesar's Legion into this story and if they would function correctly in a society of quirks and heroes.

That's all I have to say and I'll see you in the next one. Buh-bye.

- Arbiter101