MonsterKing - :D
TheGreatBubbaJ - Way worse. Tbh I just don't fathom a way of Godhaul being stopped once he would truly get the hang of his quirks, aside from direct him from a nuke.
Naruto30 - Define endgame? It's the main antagonist of the fic alright.
AdrianVnz - Kirishima achieved peak manliness, ngl.
MrMateusz - RIP Overhaul. As for Aiko's quirk, it's in the next chapter :P
InfinityMask - Yeah, RIP people. Died like chads.
CaptainSteeleStag - Except less on drugs xd
Detrametal - Yeah, it is a war. And that was a very bad battle.
(***)
There's going to be a time when Re-Destro is going to go drink some rather expensive alcohol, celebrating the fact that he and his compatriots didn't - accidentally - manage to destroy Japan. Probably this evening.
There's also going to be time when Rikiya Yotsubashi will call Garaki back and give him a piece of his mind about his so called 'meta-ability expertise' largely contributing to said nearly avoided apocalypse (one thing's for certain, he isn't relying on that man's knowledge ever again). Probably in half an hour or something like that.
In the meantime, the Grand Commander of the Meta-Liberation Army and the heir of Destro is going to focus on something else. Something that's way more constructive while also doing wonders on the field of stress relief.
Because for as much as he is in control of himself, as he always does, deep inside he is equal part terrified, stressed, relieved and overwhelmed by a desire to see Kyudai Garaki's head on the wall of his penthouse at the top of the Detnerat tower.
As a result, the stunned silence in the MLA's command center is interrupted only by the sound of Re-Destro clapping his hands, his eyes still on the screen, Rikiya Yotsubashi appearing to be completely unaware of his surroundings.
Skeptic and Raven are still too busy trying to comprehend what just happened. In the end, it's the Grand Commander of the MLA that speaks first.
"Beautiful!" He says. "Wonderful! Brilliant! Did you see this? Did you see all of this?" He asks, his eyes suddenly back at his two companions.
"I… did." Skeptic admits. "But I'm not sure if I understand what I saw." He adds after a second. Re-Destro's eyes promptly switch to his assistant. She nodded in agreement. They saw the events from the perspective of both Midoriya and some remaining observation drones.
"He used the meta-abilities of his classmates to seal both ways of self-healing available to Overhaul." Re-Destro replies. "First, Overhaul itself. The meta-ability that requires his hands to be used. Once that was over, they held him in place and had Endeavor's son burn off his head. Thus dealing instantly lethal damages to Chisaki, while simultaneously carbonizing the injuries so that his Hyper-Regeneration couldn't heal him. All in a span of several seconds, before the quirk in question could restore his hands, allowing him to once again heal himself with Overhaul."
He still had questions. The biggest one was probably what sort of meta-ability that little girl had. Midoriya brought her there for a reason, without a doubt. Was it why Overhaul's initial Air Cannon misfired? Some sort of quirk-interference meta-ability to seal most of his arsenal?
But if so, why did they need to chop off Overhaul's hands in order to keep Overhaul' offline? He had a lot of questions to ask to the Detnerat Company meta-ability analysis team.
"Time for a further lesson, it seems." Re-Destro decides to take advantage of it. "You saw a battle, you saw how Young Midoriya operates. How much did you manage to glean about him as a commander?"
"He's certainly better than I am." Raven admits. "In hindsight I understand what he did and how. However, I'm sure that even if I was given the list of meta-abilities involved, I wouldn't manage to craft an operation plan, especially on the fly." She thinks about it for a moment more. "Was it done on the fly?"
Ah. Truly, she had potential. Re-Destro's eye for talent didn't lead him astray this one time.
"No, I don't think so." Re-Destro replies. "At least not entirely. I suspect that he had more generalized countermeasures for both Overhaul and a potential repetition of Revenant. However, he did have to merge those two scenarios into a single plan, on the fly."
Skeptic is listening. Raven spends a few seconds processing the new information. Eventually, she gets somewhere.
"Would you… would you manage to do it?" She asks him. Right question. Right question undoubtedly.
One of the most important things in being a villainous mastermind is the ability to recognize your own limits. She showed a speck of it, having admitted to her inability to match up to Valiant earlier. A proof of how much progress she made since joining the MLA.
Re-Destro believes that it's time to show his own quality on that field.
"No, I wouldn't." Re-Destro says. Skeptic stares at him from under his way too long hair in shock. "Don't look at me like that, old friend! Everyone has their own specialties. So, my dear assistant? What can you tell me about him now?"
"He is clearly a talented tactician, especially when quirks are involved." She eventually says. "He beats you in that, which makes sense, seeing as your skills are more suited towards crafting a long-term strategy and leading an underground organization."
Decent enough. The comparison is logical and her own idea entirely. There's clear progress. In the meantime, the Grand Commander decides to lend her a hand.
"More than that." Re-Destro replies. "He is an extraordinarily talented tactician. Someone that, without a doubt, is shaping up to be Nedzu's equal in that field. Without a dedicated intelligence meta-ability, even. Which dulls his edge, but also makes him more versatile - Nedzu's meta-ability, for example, makes him brilliant when a sheer cognitive speed is involved, but also makes him weak when things harder to calculate are involved. Like emotions. What else do we know about him?"
This time, it's Skeptic that speaks.
"He is a potential strategist as well." He says. "Considering how his ideas helped bring down the Commission. However, it's clear that he has much less practical experience in that field."
Which isn't surprising. Tactics are much easier and faster to learn. A child can dissect meta-abilities and consider their practical applications when mutually countering them at low cost. But to actually learn inside details of the way a society, a hero system, organizations like the HPSC work to be able to even start crafting a long-term strategy that can work…
It was something entirely different.
"Precisely!" Re-Destro says. "He is clearly a tactician and strategist. Just like Nedzu is a data analyst and tactician, while Sir Nighteye is… was, an investigator and a strategist. Anything more, my dear?"
He is babying her a little, but he has a soft spot for a girl of the age similar to his own daughter. Especially when life gave them fathers that were SO bad. Besides, it's not like they had a lot of time to work on her skills.
Eventually she shakes her head. Guess it's time to help her a bit.
"He is also, without a doubt, charismatic." Re-Destro announces. When she gives him a weird look, he smiles back. "Not in the 'can talk well' way that our friend Trumpet has going. But think about it. We know that he is the class president of his class. That alone tells us that they trusted him with such a position. But what did we witness today?"
Ah. She realizes.
"He told several of his classmates to come face probably the most dangerous villain in the history of Japan, the man that was in the process of swatting Top Heroes away like flies." She says. "He told them that they are going to have to kill him. And they didn't falter for a millisecond. They trusted him with their lives, because when he said that there was no other option, they knew that he meant it."
"Precisely!" Re-Destro gives her a wide smile. "He has more than his tactical and strategic skills. He has the charisma to make people look up to him, to follow his orders without questioning them, simply because he was the person to issue them."
"That… sounds like a threat." Skeptic decides to comment on it.
"Without a doubt." Re-Destro agrees. "Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: Valiant, the future Number One Hero. The greatest and hopefully final creation of the system that we're fighting against. And, in a few years top, the most likely greatest obstacle in our way. So… ideas on how to deal with him?"
"Assassination? Skeptic asks.
"An option, yes." Re-Destro agrees. Personally, his heart bleeds at the concept of extinguishing the young life of someone as brilliant and talented. But he'll not waste the lives and efforts of all of his comrades by being sentimental. "However, it'd have to be done perfectly. Perfectly. And certainly not before we'll be ready to step out into the light if the plan goes sideways. Because a failure will set him after us. Anything else about that?"
"Hit him with everything we have, use people with powerful meta-abilities that he never heard about, such as Geten, Hypothermia or you, keep applying pressure on him so that he doesn't have time to formulate a battle plan." Raven replies, proving to him once again that her specialty lies in tactics. She just needs a lot more work to get anywhere close to Valiant's level. "And, most importantly, make sure that his classmates aren't there. Because he is clearly best used to employing their meta-abilities and other skills. And if random heroes appear at the scene then, even if he has a grand plan, they might discount it due to his young age, especially when we won't give him time to explain it."
There was certainly a lot of potential in her. She just needed some polishing. Re-Destro was ready to help her in that.
"Precisely, my dear." Re-Destro replies. "That's my idea exactly. Skeptic, we're going to need a meeting of the council." He changes the subject. "Except for Trumpet." They have a lot of work ahead of them.
In the meantime, he needs to finally answer Garaki's calls. And wait for the reaction from the government after the Meta-Liberation Army finally succeeded.
It was supposed to happen in Kamino. They weren't supposed to lose Slidin'Go. They weren't supposed to let the Heroes discover the existence of both Geten and Re-Destro. On the other hand… Sir Nighteye's death was something greatly beneficial to the MLA, and they didn't plan for that.
In the end, thanks to Valiant being there, they managed to avoid losing more valuable assets. In fact, they got as close to the perfect ending on this operation as possible. For as much Re-Destro understands his own strengths and has a healthy degree of confidence in his foresight, Overhaul ascending into godhood all of a sudden was one thing that he didn't plan for.
"Why is Trumpet excluded?" His assistant asks. Skeptic smiles slightly from the background.
"Why exactly do you think the MLA survived in hiding for almost two hundred years?" Re-Destro asks.
"I have no idea how that's even possible, to be frank." Raven decides to be blunt. "I always assumed, apologies for that, that you were born recently and simply borrowed the… uhm… vibe?"
Re-Destro laughs.
"You aren't entirely wrong." Yotsubashi replies. "For most of that time we've existed as an idea. The bloodline of Destro continued to exist, being more of a rallying cry among people sharing the same ideology than anything else. There were times when we were nothing more than figureheads. In fact, it took me quite a while to… emancipate myself from the advisors that preceded those that you got to know."
"That… suddenly makes much more sense." She admits. "And how exactly did you manage to keep such a large operation hidden?"
"Combination of two factors." Re-Destro replies. "One is a line of meta-ability users that allow you to establish binding contracts. Every single member of the MLA does that when they join us. All it does is prevent them from telling anyone about us unless they are given explicit permission from one of our First Advisors, such as Trumpet or Skeptic. The second is… let's say… constructive paranoia when organizational work is involved."
"Paranoia?" Raven asks.
"Let's imagine that you're someone like Nedzu." Re-Destro says. "You find out that you're facing someone called 'Re-Destro' who has access to a surprising amount of money and resources, and rather extraordinary information sources. Where do you start to look for him?"
She understands almost immediately.
"They'll start from the Hearts and Minds Party." She replies. "The major, openly operating organization with access to members of the government… which happens to share a significant part of MLA's ideology."
"Bingo!" Re-Destro smiles. "There's a reason why the only Hearts and Minds Party member you've ever seen in Deika is Trumpet. And even that rather rarely, as we prefer online meetings. Because, my dear, in the extremely unlikely case that the heroes will manage to break through all of our informational security or somehow breach the confidentiality contracts… they'll discover that all members of the Party that are sworn members of the MLA believe that Koku Hanabata is Re-Destro. After all, what's more likely, my dear? That a group of politicians financed terrorists that they agree with… or that there is a two-century old conspiracy that includes close to one hundred twenty thousand sworn members nationwide, waiting for the right time to raise up and overthrow the government?"
Of course, that was still going to be a massive blow to the MLA. And the end of its bid for what could be considered a golden ending for Destro's Long War (the concept brought up in a booklet, a small and nameless addition to the Meta-Liberation War written by him to his future successors).
But… the MLA itself would continue to exist. Weakened, but not destroyed. Re-Destro's main advantage was in his enemies not knowing that he exists, allowing him to play a long-game with the patience of a saint.
To quote Destro, the most flawless victory is the one achieved before the battle starts.
(***)
The first thing that he did once they all arrived back at the UA (and Recovery Girl fixed his arm) was to hug his girlfriend. And start crying. Uraraka accepted that with quiet determination. For all their past history, him actually opening up with his pain rather than trying to bottle it down to avoid 'bothering' other people was a progress.
A massive one, all things considered.
They are mostly sidelined. Nedzu - together with their own classmates that stayed behind and some of the UA teachers, although not the currently absent Eraserhead - hurried them into the UA building.
Beyond it is panic. Police officers evacuating the captives and trying to figure out what the fuck actually happened. Paramedics hauling the injured (Shishido and Ryukyu chief among them) to the nearest hospital.
They still didn't find Endeavor.
A few police officers seem to want to ask Izuku some questions but Atsuhiro Sako and Present Mic were at the door, telling them to give him a moment. Uraraka has a job to do in the meantime and she's going to do it properly.
"I-I'm sorry." Izuku mumbles right next to her ear. She pulls back a little just to get a better look at his face.
"For?" She asks.
"For making you… for making all of you… into killers." He says, clearly avoiding her eyes.
Oh no. This won't stand. Uraraka Ochaco suspects that she's in for a lot of nightmares, and it'll take her a while to get over what she just helped in doing. They all probably will. But right now? Right now her boyfriend needs reassurance. Especially as she knows that he'll be there for her if she'll need him.
"Izuku." She says, her hands (except for one finger) on both sides of his head. She lifts his face for their eyes to meet. "It wasn't your fault."
"But…"
"It wasn't your fault." She repeats her words, this time with more weight behind them. "Overhaul left us with no other choice. He slaughtered most of Top Heroes without breaking a sweat, and you, no, WE managed to stop him. We saved thousands of people he would kill further down the line if we didn't stop him there, and you know it."
Of course he does. It's just in Izuku's case, Uraraka found out a while ago, knowing something doesn't equal 'feeling' something. It's like his smarts and emotions were two completely separate departments.
She was fully ready to help build a bridge between them.
"I…" He is looking for another excuse to wallow in self-pity. Uraraka gives him the time to do that. "If I was stronger…"
"Then what?" She cuts in. She let him do it precisely so that she could then topple his 'argument'. "Then you'd kill him on your own? We both know that he was too powerful to arrest. We both know that they are planning to execute Revenant soon because they aren't sure if they can keep him imprisoned indefinitely. Nemesis… no, Overhaul, was even stronger than him."
"But I…"
"Izuku." She is going to have to be a little more pushy on that. "I simply can't imagine anyone managing to master One for All as quickly as you did. No one would have done a better job than you. Yes, even your father."
He inhales deeply, yeah, that was a bit of a gut punch to him. But she doesn't let him say anything.
"Yes, he was stronger than you, but we both know that Overhaul was as much if not more powerful than All Might in his prime." She continues. "Your father would lose. You, with a bunch of hero trainees, WON. And they all survived. Because you were smart enough to figure out how to use them to cover up for your weakness. And because you were strong enough on your own to send a man that defeated most of the Top Heroes flying. So don't you dare look down on yourself, or I'm going to beat you up in the next training exercise until you look worse than All Might probably did after being trained by Gran Torino, got it?"
"Y-yes!" He lets out, before hugging her again. "But… please let me stay like that for a moment, a-alright?"
"Of course." She replies, hugging him closer. "For as long as we can."
(***)
In the end, All Might and Eraserhead appear almost simultaneously, both of them being busy with something.
Eraserhead was busy making sure that Suto Sakai won't get arrested by waving around documents that Nedzu prepared for her ahead of schedule.
1-C just got itself a first Villain Rehab classmate. Sir Nighteye basically arranged it so that the girl in question appeared to be the source of the intel that led to the assault on the Beast's base of operations and his subsequent capture. Nedzu inherited said arrangements, especially as they would allow her to not live in fear of being outed as Beast's daughter.
The police officers decided to retreat for the time being.
All Might in the meantime was temporarily acting as Nedzu's secretary, being complicit in the rat's attempt to control the chaos.
He still phoned his wife, who happened to be visiting Rei Todoroki, telling her to come back in a hurry because things happened.
Eraserhead took a single look at still crestfallen Midoriya. Normally he would be snarky about life proving Aizawa right and giving Midoriya - to quote Shinsou - a vibe check. But considering what the kid just went through… he already knew that.
Besides, if you added what Sir Nighteye told him about Midoriya's quirk… Izuku returning to his normal self was actually preferable. The last thing they wanted was the fate-altering ship that he was thanks to his siblings choosing a different course.
"You did good, kid." Eraserhead says instead. Midoriya looks equally shocked with his words as he was reassured (after all, if Aizawa of all people said that).
Aiko, in the meantime, decided to be herself.
"Daddy." She said, looking up at All Might. "I helped stop a bad guy. I'm a hero. I want headpats. And a nap. Am tired." She says, slightly slurring at the end.
Yagi Toshinori promptly - and without a single word - raises her up, carries her towards the nearest bench, sits on it, and then lets her fall into a nap on his lap. Headpats, it seems, will come later.
Aiko falls asleep almost immediately.
"It's, errr, her quirk." Izuku says. Quietly. "Exhausts her quickly when overused." Eraserhead and Uraraka give him The Stare. Midoriya glances at All Might who quickly nods. "We'll… we'll explain how it works to you once things calm down. To you and… probably some more people."
They were hiding it for too long, and from people that didn't deserve to be kept in the dark to begin with.
(***)
The active Vestiges were still busy processing their relief (that they won AND survived), awe (at Izuku managing to outmaneuver and eliminate who was by all intents and purposes All for One's equal, despite having a fraction of full power that All Might had in his prime) and sadness and pity at him having to kill someone at such a young age, when Nana suddenly broke into tears.
(the only exception to the list was Third and his apparent lack of sadness and pity, but that's mostly because of his kill count while he was alive - it made him kind of numb)
"Nana?!" Banjo freaked out the most. After Yoichi, but he was still at the "I'm not sure how to even look at her" stage. "What happened?"
"N-nothing, it's just…" She tries to dodge it, but they don't let her. They are, in a way, her friends (except for Third who is more like that weird uncle that is kind of there and you don't know how to interact with him). This is very unlike her, and they won't let that slide.
"Nana." En sweeps in. "Talk to us." Shinomori and Banjo are giving her the 'don't try to fight us on that' look. And since Yoichi still is trying to not look at her (while she is trying to not look at him), she can't expect help from him. So she surrenders.
"I just realized something." She replies. Tears are still there, but significantly more subdued. "He really did it, didn't he?"
"Who?" En asks.
"Toshi." She says, before gesturing at All Might in front of them. "I trained him while knowing that All for One would kill me sooner or later. That he will probably get to Toshi, eventually. And then, when he killed me, I spent years, no, decades watching Toshi fighting him. Training like a maniac, risking his life almost on a daily basis. For decades I constantly expected All for One to jump at him from behind the corner at any moment, and do to him what he did to me."
She inhales deeply, clearly trying not to burst into tears again.
"And then, Toshi did it." She continues. "He defeated him. And… look at him now. He has a family, something that I never expected him to get, something that he didn't expect himself to have. He has a loving wife. He has a son for whom he is the coolest person ever and with whom he can do all the stupid things when his wife isn't looking. He has All for One's daughter, who has a quirk that could one day make her a danger to equal him, sleep on his lap. Because she feels safe there. And thanks to that, she's one day going to be a hero. And so will All for One's son. All because even after all that happened to him, even after what happened to me, Toshi looked at the children of the worst villain to ever live and was like "cool, free children". And he is doing his best to be the best father for them that he can be."
As if to highlight her words, All Might takes that occasion to slightly shift Aiko's position so that he could put her favorite Gang Orca plushie on her chest. That she promptly (and without waking up) hugged.
"You did it, Toshi." Nana says, tears once again streaming off her face. "It took you almost thirty years, but you did it. You got your Golden Ending, your happily ever after. And I couldn't be more proud."
The dam breaks completely. Banjo and En end up changing the front of One for All into a hugpile after rushing towards her. Shinomori, in the meantime, looks remarkably unmoved. Solemn, even.
"For as much as I agree with her…" He says towards Yoichi. "... especially as the PLF is… honestly, that's Izuku's story now, at least Overhaul's part of it… All Might has one last enemy to face. Although I'm afraid that it's the one fight that he'll have to wage alongside his son."
"What do you mean?" Yoichi is clearly trying NOT to run towards Nana to join the hug pile. Honestly, the amount of awkwardness surrounding him and Shimura makes Third uncomfortable. And, slowly, not just Third.
"Who…" Inko Midoriya, having just stormed into the room, asks. On her face, a forced calmness that's clearly hiding a storm underneath."... brought MY daughter into an active warzone?"
…
"Oh we're so dead." Yoichi announces in the resulting silence.