WARNING – HUGE MANGA SPOILERS. This covers the end of the war arc and some pretty big spoilers that are revealed later in the story, so if you are an anime only or simply haven't caught up yet, I'd advise not to read this.
Note – This is a Oneshot and will have no continued chapters, and regarding a certain user's quirk and name (once you've read it, you'll know who I'm talking about) that's just made up for this Oneshot, I only gave it to him to make sense story wise, couldn't just leave him nameless, but otherwise I hope you enjoy my take on the end of the war arc.
...
...
Izuku Midoriya. Ninth user of One for All, a sacred quirk that had been passed down through generations snapped awake – finding himself laying down on the warped rocky surface that, that just a few hours prior had been a city block.
Bloody, bruised and disoriented, Izuku dozily glanced around. Every instinct screaming at him to stop, his body was worn and tired, fighting for what felt like days, how had everything gone so awry in such a short span of time.
They were just students, first-years. What right did any of them in a war like this.
Still, there was Shigaraki only mere meters away from them, like a fly buzzing around a web of heroes, his limbs acting as a swatter, whirring around into the dirt, flicking up debris with enough brute force to hold off whoever was heading his way.
Gigantomachia, who was supposed to arrive and act as the villain's ticket out from the madness, to get a break from all of those wretched heroes had been quickly dispatched of.
None of them present were quite sure why, he had arrived with such ferocious vigor, shrieking a whole slew of incoherent words, his scraggly voice growing lower and lower to the point that the ravishing beast wasn't making a sound, collapsing onto the ground without so much as thud being heard.
Had someone facing the multi-quirked monster deep into the forest fed it a drug? Izuku couldn't imagine what could take down something on its scale though.
Hobbling up from his less than impressive state, Izuku nudged himself on both feet, demanding his legs to move, do anything to get him over to the battle he was just barely able to make out, an evercoming swirl of fire, smoke, ash and blasts of all kind fielding his vision.
"Ninth, you must stop. Pushing your body any further especially in this state will do you no good," A voice Izuku had heard previously ringed about in the inner dwellings of his subconscious, muttering about an empty warning for him.
He wasn't going to abide by it, what hero would stand by and watch others fight instead. Shigaraki now held All for One, the power that he was destined to contest with, only this time it would be different.
Eight people before him had failed to properly quell the evil ability to steal all it wished, he would break the cycle, no longer would he watch his friends, his mentors and all the other heroes around him struggle in vain to stop him.
This is all had to stop, the repeating battle of good and evil.
"Tenko...my grandson. Please, stop him; it isn't right for me to ask you this, not with your current situation, I'm sorry for that.." There was another voice niggling at him, this one he recognized. They'd spoken to him the night before he'd awoken Blackwhip.
The seventh user, All Might's mentor Nana Shimura.
"Tenko...that's who Shigaraki is," Izuku acknowledged, his voice cracked and half-asleep, he would ignore that though, to many thoughts were jumbling about in his head.
What could he do in this kind of scenario? Getting into another clash with Shigaraki would just be the same as before, like banging two opposite magnets together, they would just bounce off once another without much afterthought.
Only this time, Shig- Tenko's regeneration would give him the upper hand.
Blackwhip ensnared itself in spirals across Izuku's fractured and purple arms, giving it some semblance of levity to the searing pain that the adrenaline coursing through his veins were doing wonders to deal with. One for All resurfaced back within him, most of the previous holders voicing their regrets, but Izuku was going to do otherwise no matter what.
A wild, worrying thought crossed his mind. He was almost a bit sick to the stomach just from thinking about it, even for a single moment.
"Huh...if you're willing to do this, then we'll lend you our remaining quirks. You've already been slowly activating my Danger Sense, so using the others shouldn't be all too difficult," Hikage Shinomori said with some reluctance.
Thinking for a few seconds, Izuku was able to match the voice to the face. Someone who had frequented his dreams for the past few days, a man with an elongated black-lined scar streaming down his left eye, a cause of One for All breaking down his body.
Danger Sense. Izuku could only match it back to constant twinge at the back of his head, it had allowed him to dodge the streaming red and black hooks, gnawing through them in service of his dangling limbs, so he did have to thank the quirk for that.
"Other quirks? What are they, there are three users left right?"
"That depends, are you ready to use them all?" En, another user who had spoken more than some other users, especially the older ones, particularly the second and third, they had hardly said more than a word to him whenever he slept.
Whatever, that didn't matter he had to get back into the fight.
Regaining his sinuses, Izuku could feel himself tingling from head to toe, lifting off the ground with soft silence; taking some time to regain control midair, he'd only used the quirk Float once after all and that was in the spur of the moment, having also shot out more of Blackwhip than he ever had.
The deafening blast of explosions almost shook Izuku back to the ground, it was Kacchan, still moving despite the gaping wound Shigaraki had left in his rampage.
'He got hurt because of me; Shigaraki stabbed Kacchan instead of me!'
No that wasn't his name, Nana had already explained that to him. Shigaraki was brought to this point because of All for One, this wasn't his choice, or maybe now it was, but he shouldn't have been strayed down this path in the first place.
Izuku would be the one to stop him, no matter what he had to do.
"Go."
Endeavour coughed up enough blood to spill over a slab of concrete, using it as leverage to get back up. He had to, Shigaraki was still running ramped, leaving nothing in his wake with his decay which was now able to decimate all that was with him.
Hence why he was being kept busy up in the sky.
Aizawa had sawed his own leg off, without a second thought either. He couldn't risk the bullet that stole away quirks entering his system, he was their smoking gun into actually having a fighting chance.
Turns out that had been a fruitless action.
Not only was their Shigaraki, the main villain hanging over them. But all those that had rode in on the creature from before, it had been a stroke of luck that it had randomly fell unconscious right before their eyes.
"...Toya, I'm the one you want, leave Shoto out of this!" He growled like a feral dog, watching his son be engulfed by his own child, a haunting curtain of blue farm elapsing over them both.
"C'mon, I'm just giving my dear brother a hug after being separated for so many years. Besides, why pretend as if you care about your children now?" Dabi slyly remarked, continued to brighten his own flames, burning into both Todoroki and himself.
Feeling the heat of his own fire slither back into the soles of his shoes, Endeavour fired ahead penetrating straight through the wall of blue ahead, knocking them both through the remnants of whatever building used to stand here.
His own body was soon met with the creeping sensation of fire singing his skin, he was invulnerable to his own quirk, not Toya's.
It was still unfathomable that he was still alive, after over a decade of mourning his loss and his own regret for killing his own son, and the pain it brought Rei, Fuyumi, Shoto and especially Natsuo. And after seeing his was alive he wasn't even able to take it in, with his own son swearing on his death.
He deserved it to be honest, all the hardships he'd caused to not only his own family, but all others he'd come across; heck there was probably some resentment even Burnin held for him.
But death wasn't an option, not yet. There would be time for him to admit to all of his actions and repent, properly this time – this was not it, he had to deal with Toya and then finish of Shigaraki and finally put an end to this unneeded war.
It could all be put to rest.
"I'm sorry, I didn't want to do this, you're my own child and I wanted to settle this properly, I've dealt you more pain than I can ever hope to make up for," Endeavour began, beginning to accelerate within the air, smashing through another rockpile.
Toya wasn't willing to hear any of it, clawing his way up his bastard of a father's face, embers whimpering off his palms, "Who wants to hear your speeches, I'll kill you and Shoto. I wonder the look on your face when I burn him like I was!"
"That may be true, but this all has to stop. Heroes and villains, fathers and sons, One for All and All for One."
Just like that, Endeavour dug his fist into Toya's melting jaw, picking him up and bringing him right back down into the earth.
Grunting, Toya coughed up his own amount of blood, a sickening smile on his face, "I'm not down yet, if you don't kill me now, I'll just get back up to do it. Nothing's going to change my mind about that," He groaned from the floor.
Enji Todoroki felt a heavy weight fall upon his heart, clenching his fist as smoke signaled another rising of flame, murdering your own child after abusing them for years what a twisted joke that was, maybe his own death would be the deserved punchline.
Before he could unleash his storm of fire, Todoroki ramped over to him just in time, and ice slide behind him, "Don't! If you do, even if we stop it, we won't be any better than them, we still keep it going," Todoroki swallowed his own lump of fear, staring down at his bleeding brother.
"So? Continuing it is what's meant to happen...stop trying to act above it all. This is a war, whoever dies is the loser, that's simple...I guess it always has to be the heroes," Toya mocked, his anger beginning to die out as he did, the wound wasn't fatal sadly, but it had certainly winded him, he had no energy to stand.
"Toya." Endeavour stopped, struggling to get his own words out. Even after everything, he didn't know what to say to his children, "Truly, I am sorry for what I've done to you, what a drove you to. I can't change the old monster I was..."
Shifting his scarred face so his deep blue eyes were staring up to his father with nothing but hatred.
"Right. No thanks to that bastard Skeptic, who couldn't even get the information about what you did out to the world, they'll never know who you are, isn't that heroic?"
"Maybe I'll tell the world anyway, I don't deserve to hide in the comfort of my own actions. What I did to you has to be said, no matter what that might bring," Endeavour answered seriously, gently settling Toya against the ground.
Despite what he'd heard, Toya didn't smile, he held no comment on it and didn't seem to have any particular thoughts on it. Holding onto his bleeding abdomen as he drifted off into slumber.
Todoroki grabbed his dad by the shoulder to shake him out of the locked gaze he had fixated onto Dabi, a regretful look in his eyes. He was happy that he hadn't ended up killing his own son, but with dangerously impactful landing he'd punched him into, it could very well end up happening if his burns and bleeding were left unchecked.
There was a lot that needed to be settled first, as much as it pained him, he had to put a familial troubles aside for now, "Come on Shoto, we're not done yet, this isn't over," Enji put aside his personal feelings and steeled himself once more, averting his attention to the paralyzing threat that was Tomura Shigaraki.
The youngest Todoroki was staring up at someone else, a one Katsuki Bakugo who was keeping up pace with the relentless threat of All for One, landing blast after blast on the hyper regenerative villain.
Even after being impaled, he was fighting with all he had.
'How can we even win this, without either side dying. Midoriya was the only one able to keep up with him and now he's-'
A flash of green spurred past the screen, making a strong impact with Shigaraki and knocking him completely off balance as well as sending a shockwave of wind for the sheer velocity, pushing everyone back.
I suppose that halted Todoroki's worries.
For now.
His ashen spiky blond hair practically flew off his forehead as a strange wind kicked in, scatting the explosion he was about to send Shigaraki's way.
They hadn't done all that much, apart from thoroughly piss the now white-haired prick, what a transformation he'd gone through. Last time they'd crossed paths he was whiny and had a shriveled-up voice.
Now, he was an unrivaled monster compared to the rest of them. Calm and calculated with every new attack he through at them, discovering the whole arsenal of quirks he'd obtained from All for One, each one better than the last.
Frankly, it pissed Bakugo off.
That he'd gained such power, some nobody like him had risen to the top of quirks and was holding off enough heroes to take down a small country, with just singular swats of his wrists and shots from the pin sized holes on his palms.
Whilst all he could do was duck, evade and fire a meaningless explosion that amounted to nothing more than a blackened scar over his face that was gone before he could blink.
What was pissing him the most though.
'Deku...why, stop getting back up you damn nerd, what's your limit, how far are you going to go! Before you're nothing but a walking corpse!'
Yet hear he was, flashing through the air as nothing more than a green line, blitzing into and around Shigaraki, leaving him a stunned mess, who was firing out weaponized radio waves to pinpoint his location.
After so long, with all of his thoughts and anger. Bakugo was now the one following after Deku, going so far as to jump in front of fatal attack just to keep him safe.
'Heh..'
The old him would've found that kind of sacrifice as a joke, jumping into save someone let alone Deku. The pebble beneath his feet, who ultimately amounted to nothing in front of him, but that wasn't weakness he knew that now.
And he'd already made the declaration a long time ago.
No matter what, he'd keep up with Deku.
"Ninth, slow down. Using Fa Jin in such quick succession will just knocked you out again, and right now that won't put you in the best situation," The still unnamed user warned, offering his opinion on the now amped up power of his quirk.
"Right, it doesn't have the same drawbacks as when I first used One for All, it's using up my stored energy and disperses it into something deadly! I think I can do it...I can kill Tenko!"
There. He'd said it to them, although he could already guess that they had a vague idea of what his plan was, and they seemingly held no objections, good. That was good.
All Might hadn't even done it, killed All for One. He'd just postponed this war, giving them all a brief bout of peace before all hell had broken loose, leading them to this situation.
Killing someone, was never in the quota for what Izuku had wanted to do as a hero. He'd wanted to perform dashing rescues with his flashy quirk and bring hope to all people in peril, so that whenever they saw him, they knew...everything was going to be alright.
But staring at the destruction around him, the layers of dead bodies that were on all of the heroes scorched hands. There was a duty to uphold, heroes always had a way to get out of a pinch and save those in need.
The one's that needed saving were dead, crumbled to nothing but ash. So, the question left was how to get out of it, to put a definitive end to Tenko Shimura.
To kill Tomura Shigaraki.
To see the end of All for One.
Izuku would do it, as the final holder of One for All, he was going to do what was needed, despite his own feeling on the situation he didn't care, it wasn't right to put what he felt into this, it didn't matter now.
'One for All...100%!'
Air became solid underneath the heel of his worn and tattered shoes. Float, Fa Jin and One for All working in tandem to throw himself through the mass of limbs and meeting face-to-face with Shigaraki for the split-second before he slammed his infused fist into his chest, leaving a sustained impact.
Tenko flailed back through the air, readjusting himself with the air cannon under his feet, "Izuku Midoriya. Alive and breathing, should've killed you a long time ago," Checking himself, there was strange emotion filling his chest, was it fear?
The punch that was left on his body hadn't healed yet, the skin was only now starting to recombine and collect itself to the point that it wasn't filling him with agony.
Of course, it was him, having the quirks necessary to stop his regeneration and break through the barriers he'd managed to build up.
"What a hero you are!"
Suffocating his distorted fist with, a collection of black tendrils meeting with an even stronger strength, his fist wasn't kept safe within a shield of black and a crackling power that he didn't quite recognize, it certainly wasn't One for All.
"Up again are we, I was getting bored of the backwash heroes they were sending my way. Even the number one was getting boring!"
Gritting his teeth, Izuku met his emerald green eyes with Shigaraki now dead and grey ones. They were two opposing forces repeating what had been done several times before, "Tenko! I'm sorry, I didn't want to fight, I never did. All for One did this to you, but this is all your fault, this right now!"
Shigaraki was a bit taken aback by his words; he was expecting some kind of noble jargon that he could easily brush off and keep fighting.
But here he was calling him out for all he had done – even going so far as to call him by his name, his real name.
All for One crept out from the harboring depths of his mind, trying to keep him calm, "Tomura, we must not forget our goal, what I gave you to finally squash out the tumor I've held for all these centuries.."
For once, Shigaraki shook him off. The inner space of his subconscious breaking away around him, "I will do what I want, stomp out of all heroes and remake the hero society. I'll just use your power to do that."
Despite the lack of distinctive features on his face, All for One's visible mouth creased up, wanting to say something but held his tongue, "Then you'll just die trying..."
Back to reality, Tenko sparked a ball of energy within his fingers and prepped it directly at Izuku, even if wouldn't kill, he could at least shake him off, give himself some to time to adjust himself.
"Now!" En bellowed.
All of a sudden, a blast of smoke erupted from out of where Izuku once was, blinding whoever was caught within it, "A smokescreen! He that kind of quirk now, rah!" Shigaraki let out an animalistic like growl, dashing ahead, trying to escape the everclimbling cloud.
New stabs at the back of his mind alerted Izuku to the sweeping strings of flesh, floating quickly over it, quickly recuperating, if he didn't then he'd most likely be flicked to the ground leaving him in the similar situation to where he'd started.
What he didn't anticipate for was to come into contact with someone completely different, who was still hanging midair, watching the confrontation in front of him.
"Wah...Deku!"
"Kacchan!?"
They spun in the air for what felt like years, Izuku kept them steady so that were now motionless, watching Tenko up above them, frantically trying to dispel any more of the smoke and locate where Izuku had ended up.
"What the hell are you doing, when did you get that quirk, those fuckers inside One for All are really just popping them out at this point, what else you got?" Bakugo queried, albeit actually a little curious on what else he'd obtained.
"They've sort of let go of the chain, right now I have Danger Sense, which lets me avoid incoming threats, smokescreen which is fairly obvious and...Fa Jin, which converts my own energy to power, it's a lot different to One for All though.."
Bakugo lightly slapped him round the back of the head," Alright I get the gist, enough with the damn muttering. Right now, we just gotta take the bastard down and win this," He grinned, stopping when he saw the grim look Izuku was wearing.
"What the hell are you thinking Deku!?"
"I'm doing what's best, what a hero has to do," With that, Izuku burst into the sky towards a thrashing about Shigaraki, leaving Bakugo completely in the dark.
Now losing altitude, he boomed back upwards not even coming close to the speed Izuku was matching against Shigaraki, or was it Tenko? That was the weird name he'd heard the nerd yell at him, it was typical that he would try and reason with him.
Judging by that look on his face though, it seemed that he might've had ulterior motives.
He'd never seen that kind of look on his face before, it was a stark comparison to who he was at the beginning of the year, only wanting to become a hero; now having this kind of burden placed upon him.
Even though he would never admit it, Bakugo knew him well enough. That Izuku was tired of it all, the placement and need to take down All for One, all he'd wanted was to become a hero...to save everyone within his reach.
Who was gonna be there to save him though, as he carelessly pushed his body further than it was ever supposed to go, every bone broken just lead to another outcome Izuku was gunning for.
Bakugo fired off another cloud of smoke, trailing it behind him as he fought against the harsh winds, flapping about his blood-soaked mask and collar, he couldn't hold a candle to either of them, but that didn't mean he could just stand by and watch.
This was the collision of two opposing forces, long destined to clash.
He'd be damned if he was gonna miss it.
One hit landed directly into his face, before another mashed into his body. Right now, his whole body was numb, each fist whitening the corners of his eyes and smacking his internal organs against each other.
It was a simple fix, Izuku would just have to hit back with as just as powerful if not more punch, knocking his opponent a further distance away from.
There was no breathing room, not in a fight like this. Tenko saw the kickback as nothing more than a light graze, as if someone had bumped into him a little too aggressively, wafting his now entangling snowy hair off of his eyes.
Metal spikes protruding from his chest, shooting them off in random assortment.
It was funny, quirks like these would usually bring stars into Izuku's eyes, opting to writing up a storm and learn whatever he could. Now he was wielding seven quirks all in simultaneous unison of one another, coming out tenfold to what they were in their prime.
Resuming his pressurizing vault, Izuku grimaced at the sudden pain stabbing into him. Sure, it was Danger Sense warning him off the incoming drills from behind, it almost moved his body without his own correlation, spinning him midair as Float kept him steady.
"Funny, I'm supposed to be the villain with all the quirks I have, and yet hear you are using some that are just cheating."
Shigaraki lightly tutted, shaking his head, "Not like a care, I'm cheating all the same. I have to, we both do if we want to get what we want," A weird, distorted deep voice escaped from Shigaraki, it was clear who that was.
"All for One..." Izuku griped, bitter to the bone.
It wasn't too long ago that All for One had almost succeeded in his century long task of finally stealing One for All and achieving his goal, with nothing to stand in his way.
Now, with the somewhat symbiotic attachment he had to Shigaraki he was trying to seize control again, Shigaraki's earlier comment on no longer needing him had certainly irked a reaction from the dying man, making a last-ditch effort to take him back.
"No, I'm not you, I never will be, this is my destiny, what I want! I'm not Tomura Shigaraki, I'm not even Tenko Shimura," This time however, a childlike voice slipped out, sounding the most dramatic of them all.
"That's Tenko...you reached him," Nana said in shock, wanting to reach out and tell him it would all work out, somehow it would.
What a lie that was.
She knew what Izuku was going to do what he had to, frankly she wished the same for him, there would be no other way for him to be at peace.
Daigoro Bango tried to soothe her qualms, tugging on her shoulders, "This has to be done; besides I don't think we can talk the kid out of it if we wanted to..." He lowly chuckled, trying to bring some humor to the situation.
"That's not it. I want more than anyone want him dead, it's not right to keep him alive, not for anyone, all that he's done, cannot go unpunished..." Nana explained, a tad of venom filling her words.
"..Even so, he's all I have left Kotaro. I left him alone so he wouldn't have to deal with any of me, and yet I was the reason he died, I started the spiral Tenko is now falling down!"
Sniffling for a few moments, the woman wiped her tears and stared back out into the abyss, watching Izuku brutishly batter his bleeding, mangled and frankly useless arms towards her grandson with all he had.
"We have to help him; with everything we have. That means, using all our quirks..."
Her words were directed at the second user, emptily watched the fight from the corner of the voidish world they'd created within One for All.
"...I won't. My quirk had enough drawbacks to almost kill me back when I used it, what do you think a few hundred years of being cultivated will do to it?" They retorted, now properly turning their attention to the rest of the users.
En intervened, pulling down the long-collared coat that masked his mouth, revealing a cracked and torn exterior, "Our quirks have their own drawbacks as well, where do you think my smoke used to come from, I used to the point that I couldn't breathe during my fight with One for All and yet here he is using it effortlessly and with no struggle at all."
"That's luck, and he's using it in a do or die situation, his brains his filling in the gaps for what he has to do and probably ignoring any new pain he's already experiencing...but to put it bluntly my quirk is above all of yours and has the capability to kill him if only used once!"
Bango stood up and properly stood before him, "Don't you get it you idiot, what that kid's willing to do! Even if we want to stop him, risking his own life isn't worth it he wouldn't listen he understands the job we we're all tasked with."
Hikage continued, trying a much softer approach, "Please...more than ever we can't stand by and just watch him fight, this is what we were all tasked to do with One for All. We must help him finally put an end to that goal.."
Pausing, the second user was left without much to say, instead looking onwards like Nana. Where Izuku Midoriya, a young 16-year-old was fighting for greater than they ever had, his drive and tenacity not willing to let him stop.
Who was he to get in the way of that, "I'll use it, but it'll have to be at the best time. If he goes around using it as freely as is with all of yours than quite frankly, he'll be dead before he can throw another punch."
"Pffft, so dramatic," Daigoro laughed, grinning to the bright future ahead, what they'd all died for.
"Stop running ahead Deku, don't get so cocky!" Bakugo found the irony in his words but held against thinking like that right now, focusing on the chunks of limbs and flesh firing at him like bullets - as one misstep would put another hole in his body.
Shigaraki had already labelled him as any extra, that had aggravated him, then he'd resorted to blabbing that his quirk was useless against and for him, "What a load of shit!"
Electricity fueling his knuckles, Izuku shot Tenko down to the floor once again. Only before he could recover like he had all the times before; an explainable tear bombed its way into him, splitting his already damaged muscle fibers apart.
"TENKO!" Izuku spouted his name again, he was really getting tired of thar wasted name he'd been given by his father.
He had no identity now; he was just going to cause destruction and bring about the end of heroes.
Black tendrils wrapped themselves in tight vice grip around his arms, whirling him back up to Izuku's level, another quirk infused fist meeting him head on, "Kacchan!" Instead, the attack never came as the extra he'd cast aside long ago reappeared more invigorated than ever.
"How'd you like that, really think we can't work together to kick your ass!" Bakugo spat out, sparks itching to be let free.
They weren't going to release a heavy explosion onto him though, tensing his wrist Tenko burst Air Canon from both hands, ripping them out of the hold Blackwhip had over them.
Izuku's eyes settled in on this, slightly disgusted and frustrated. This must be how Shigaraki felt about him, annoyed by his constant resurgence and coming back into the confrontation, no sign of anything managing to stop him.
"What a wasted move! I'll just regenerate it all the same!" Tenko barked, his arms having already reformed with a familiar set of tentacles exiting the corners of his fingernails, grabbing out at the two, as if they were alive.
It was at that moment that a wall of orange flame covered across the up in the air battlefield, burning into the still showing skin, worsening his already deuterating regeneration, that was definitely something to worry about.
Endeavour, the current number one hero of Japan was floating before him, somehow able to fight despite the bleeding and bruising he wasn't struggling whatsoever to keep his fire from fizzling out, he was could burning brighter.
Not as the symbol of peace, but as the burning scar he'd leave on any villain that crossed his path.
He was the number one hero now; it was his duty.
"JET BURNNNNN!" He roared, his sweat trickling into steam down his face. Unleashing a stream of condensed fire right through Tomura Shigaraki, hoping to leave nothing but a burnt corpse in its aftermath.
Once the smoke cleared, it revealed an only slighter more damaged Shigaraki, leant over in his aerial position. Typical, no way an attack like that would be enough to take him down, that job was going to be reserved for Izuku.
Shards of ice flew through the air, catching Shigaraki's attention as they domed off his hardened skin. Well, he couldn't exactly call it hard anymore, having been beaten to the point that it was actually slowing him down.
Down below was Shoto Todoroki, providing some form of ground support, not too far away from him was Eraserhead and some other hero providing some kind of support for his eye. It was a stroke of luck that he couldn't erase his quirk from such a faraway distance.
"Why are there so many heroes!? I had gotten rid of you all, and yet you just keep COMING BACK!" Mutating his limbs to a monstrous degree, Shigaraki threw about a wall of wriggling fingers, his body continuing to change the more time passed.
Endeavour smeared through them all, his fist charred from the overuse of his own quirk, he was reaching his limit.
Bakugo through an all-new shred of explosions their way, sweat faltering behind and leaving a slight aftershock as the lagged behind the new blasts he was sending forward, his own palms aching, yet he would make sure he could keep up.
Finally, there was Izuku. The main player of the match, viciously clawing his way at Tenko; lassoing Blackwhip under and over the chunks of separate limbs now hanging above them, all of it seemingly attached to Shigaraki.
"Ninth, your body is reaching its maximum. Soon, it won't matter about your willpower, you'll be dead before you even realize," Surprising him, Izuku heard the voice of a user he nor All Might knew much about.
"I know that, but Tenko just keeps putting up impenetrable defenses, not to mention I don't know how many quirks he has stockpiled within All for One..."
Summoning all that was left of Fa Jin within his leg, Izuku punted it through the largest of the fleshly hills, separating them into small, miniscule bullets spreading them around sporadically.
"You won't have to. You'll be using my quirk to close in on him and then...do what you have to."
Izuku audibly gulped. Never being heard amongst the raging chaos surrounding him, swallowing his own quarrels with the plan, Izuku agreed with the user, conjuring One for All within his legs, holding it for some fleeting seconds.
It all released at once, rocketing him past all of the carnage and right below the enraging Tenko.
Clenching his fist, a blue glow collapsed around it, making its way up his body. This was the second users quirk? It was sending a tingling sensation up and throughout his chest, swirling it all into a singular spot, suffocating him the longer it flowed through his veins.
The threshold to use such an overwhelming quirk, it made sense that they had held off on giving it to him, not even a minute had passed and Izuku felt as if he was going to die, "Gaghhhhh," Izuku gargled, no air entering his lungs.
Planting his foot on the air beneath his feet, float expanded to the point that he could stand midair with no problems. His green hair stood on end, only this time Eri wasn't needed, he was using the quirk he'd trained for the better half of two years to the test.
'I can't stop now; I've been fighting with more than broken bones...I guess Mr. Aizawa was wrong about me being useless after a single punch, this quirk is nothing, it won't stop me.'
Bakugo caught sight of Izuku through it all, his crimson eyes shaking upon the worrying thought that had just made its way into his mind, "Deku, don't you dare. DON'T YOU DARE DO IT YOU BASTARD!" Explosions raced a mile minute, throwing him past everything in his way.
Izuku finally met his eyes with his own, a weak, small yet sincere smile on his face, "We're heroes after all, Kacchan!"
And just like that Izuku blipped out of existence right before his eyes.
Tatei Yawaraka had lived a good life.
Until it had all been turned upside down once, he'd been gifted an unbelievable power known as One for All. After that, he was in constant peril by the brother of the man who'd given him such a powerful yet difficult quirk.
It was safe to say that the dictator of Japan was scared, worried that everything that he'd worked so hard could be crumbled down because of his own doing.
Now, after several passages of the quirks had been made, quirk after quirk being stored and saved within the stockpile power, he'd been there practically from the beginning; watching new users join the quirk after failing to defeat All for One.
That was until All Might, the proclaimed Symbol of Peace. Managed to put him behind bars in his final bout of glory, retiring soon after.
Yet, the evil persisted, festering and growing inside all others that had even come close to him. And now the ninth and strongest holder was going to do it properly, with the help of his quirk.
In truth, Tatei's quirk hadn't been all to useful in the time he'd been alive, mainly used on small objects and fairly rarely himself or other around him. The distance wasn't all to grand and the power was nothing to comment on.
But thanks to One for All, it had grown to something exponential compared to how it had been, his quirk...
Warp.
Izuku ripped his body straight from where it had been, now above Shigaraki before anyone could even realize what had happened.
There was only one downside to the quirk, even though it now seemed extremely versatile. Only that Izuku's heart was beating faster than it ever had in his life, to the point that he felt as if he was going to pass out right then and there.
"GO!" Izuku could hear all the previous users screaming him on.
Once more, only with more vigor. Izuku pierced Blackwhip into Tenko's shoulder, sweeping him up to his level, "This has to end, I'm going to end it!"
"That'll be me, I'm going to win!" Shigaraki bellowed with just as much passion.
Launching a whole tank's worth of power from out of his palms, Shigaraki sent out a ringlet of sharp tendons from within his body, a wave of them towering to the point that they were peeking through the clouds.
Irregardless of that though, Izuku warped away from it all barreling his fist into Tenko, a red imprint left afterwards.
'I have to do, if I don't, they all die!'
Wasting no time, Izuku fizzled his fist away from reality, a desperate, eager glint in his eye. This had to work, it was all he had left – him and Shigaraki had been battling for far too long, the longstanding rivalry would end now.
In now time whatsoever, Izuku skewered his arm right through Shigaraki, piercing out from the other side, both of them in a state of shock, not sure what else to do, completely frozen.
Tenko looked anything other than surprised, not that he'd had a fist teleported through his stomach, but that fact that Izuku Midoriya was the one to go through with it, the hopeful hero had decided to put an end to him.
But with the determined expression on his face, it was obvious to tell that he wasn't finished.
As the crimson spikes rained down onto Izuku he steeled himself and launched himself back down to the ground, ignoring the blood seeping from his back from the multitude of them that had pierced into him.
One for All was accumulating to its absolute breaking point, soaring them faster and faster to ever encroaching ground, where the full decimate of what Tenko had done settled in where and a wasteland stood below them, nothing as far as the eye could see.
"...I can't believe, even after everything. That itch at the back of my throat never went away, I guess that's what...I deserve," Tenko spoke weakly, finally deciding to not fight back what was the point, he'd lost even after everything.
Maybe now though, he could be reunited with his sister, mother, grandparents and even his dog. Did he deserve that kind of resolution? After all he'd done.
He didn't know, what would be left for him and everyone else. The League, would they be left in tatters and defeat with his absence taken in by the heroes and police put away to rot for the rest of their lives, he didn't want that, they were like family to him.
"Tenko, I'm sorry."
Blinking, Tenko remembered what should have been an obvious fact, he was plummeting to his death alongside Izuku Midoriya, the two of them having nothing more to say to one another, feeling more at peace than they ever had.
Finally colliding with floor, the two of them flew back. The light in their eyes which had once been full of idealism, hope and power died out, no longer full of anything.
Despite the empty city they laid in, both of them couldn't closed their eyes with no contempt left within them.
"Move it," Bakugo grumbled, a panicked, shaky tone about him, pushing past the broken Endeavour, the deathly quiet Todoroki and the rest of the heroes staring silently at something, what a bunch of lowlifes, what was there to look at right now.
Shoving to the front of the crowd, he saw his teacher fallen onto his knees, his head his hand to pained to look at what was in front of him.
It was Deku.
His body was cold to the touch, dried blood had stained his hero costume, leaving it looking nothing like had previously. His green hair was frayed and dirty, masked in a layer of dirt and mud the fruits of his long-lasting battle showing.
Katsuki's leg buckled under his own shock, dropping him to the floor where he could now get a closer look at his childhood friend's face, his freckled face was layered with an abundance of mess that had ruined the once heroic smile, he would wear no matter what.
That was gone, replaced with an expressionless look that only cemented his own fears.
"Deku, get up. We won, you won you damn nerd, just get up you bastard this isn't the time to...not after everything!" He couldn't even say, choking up on his own word's tears dripping down his face much like Mr. Aizawa's.
It was only a little bit ago that Shigaraki's motionless corpse had been discovered, just as wounded as freezing as Izuku's.
They could do nothing wail in their own grief, and carry the hero along with them, the other villains were being caught and detained, each of them full with loss of any sort of closure, mucked in their own torment.
None had anything to say, returning to the rest as victorious but with no sense of triumph within them.
Izuku jolted upright with a start, all that was around him was the swirling tides of blackness, much akin to the mental realm within One for All. Yet now, there was no other users just him, standing alone in the vast emptiness.
His mouth was no longer blocked, he could move his body as freely as he wanted. Where would he even walk though? There was nowhere to go, not in here and certainly not out there – he was aware of his current situation, yet he was now here.
Had he done what was right? Putting an end to someone else's life, even if they were a villain was that what a hero would do? What All Might would do.
All Might...what would be the look on his face after seeing him, lifeless in somebodies' arms. He didn't want him to have a shameful feeling of guilt, he hoped that his mentor would be proud of him and smile upon what he hears.
His mum, Uraraka, Iida, Todoroki, Mr. Aizawa his whole class. Would they all have the same look, mourn him in the same way...he was discouraged that all of his loved ones would be sad upon hearing his death, but in a way, he was happy, to be blessed with so many people who cared for him.
Amongst the void, a pale light elapsed over everything, it was now all that was in front of him, he knew as much what this meant.
Even his time here was cut short. Nevertheless, he began to walk without any kind of reluctance; he was ready for it, this was the plan after all, in what could his broken body keep him standing for much longer, it was an inevitability.
Still, he hoped that he'd done it. Accomplished his dream, even if it wasn't for very long, did everyone see him as one, understand the reason he'd sacrificed himself for the greater good, maybe some would be angry at him for what he'd done, but that was fine, they deserved that much.
But he really did want to help everyone, step in and be the blinding light to stop all who opposed him to always save the day.
Izuku Midoriya had only ever wanted to become a hero.
...
Damn. Well, that's that, just had the overwhelming urge to write but didn't want to update any of my stories, not right now. I feel like I did an alright job with this Oneshot, been wanting to write about the war arc but never had a good way to in my stories as it's fairly deep into the story and usually start it near the beginning.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it, whoever's reading this anyway, sorry if there was a lot of grammatical errors as well. Until next time, with whatever I write next, see yah!