A/N: Well, that was one hell of a ride in the last chapter. It's been incredible to see the reaction to that, because I appreciate it's possibly the biggest moment of the story so far, and I'm glad so many people are still interested for the future to come after this. I don't intend on slowing down any time soon.

Just to give you guys a heads-up, we are nearing the end of what I will ostensibly call Act 2 of this fic, in about four or five chapters' time. When I do reach the end of that, I will need to take a hiatus, probably for about a month. I will do that partly because I want to make sure I'm fine-tuning what will be Act 3, and to rest from this story because it takes A LOT to be able to keep up the upload schedule around my work I'll be available to talk on the Incident Zero channel on Ignite to the Call's server in that time (the code to join is G52hykZU for anyone interested), and I may update other fics, but I will have a lot of busy stuff to sort around Christmas and exams, so a break for this fic is what I need.

Anyway, last time we had a lot going on. Himiko lost, Kurogiri was compromised, and Setsuna escaped. It's Izuku and Tenko vs Garaki's Nomu, this time…

and everything changes.

(***)

Like lightning, Nomu surged forwards, and Izuku barely had a second to think before he was thrown into the thick of battle.

He was still shaken by how he had used All For One mere seconds before. The villain called Kurogiri… Izuku had dived for him hoping that he would be able to save Setsuna and Himiko, preventing him from opening another portal and keeping them in harm's way. Compared to when he had used it on his own mother, the sensation when taking from Kurogiri had sent him into shivers, white noise flooding his brain with incomprehensible data from the second he made contact. He was lucky that Tenko had been aware enough of Nomu's charge to be able to grab him by the collar of his Hero costume and pull, sending Izuku staggering but ultimately dragging him out of the way of the marauding beast.

Izuku shook his head to try to clear some of the dizziness and pulled himself upright, as Nomu careened into a fallen piece of rubble the size of a car and went flying. He wasn't the only one feeling the effects of what he had just done- his target was now collapsed on the floor, incapacitated and unable to warp himself or anyone else, and he hadn't been able to stand since Izuku targeted him with All For One. One of multiple Quirks had been taken… and now Kurogiri was in agony, and the Doctor was enraged, because of what Izuku had done.

Nomu had been ordered to kill-

"Izuku, get up!" Tenko tugged on his sleeve, and shouted at him, pulling him in the opposite direction of Nomu. "Nomu used Tackle, now run!"

"R-Right!" Izuku shook himself, and stumbled after Tenko, trying to put some distance between them and the creature sent to hurt them. It was just them now against the abomination, and Izuku couldn't afford to get distracted by dwelling on what he had just seen. He had to get his head in the game, and they had to come up with a way to beat it, fast. "What are we going to do, Tenko-"

"I was kinda hoping you'd be the one with the plan! All those notebooks-" Tenko swore, as he vaulted over a chunk of rebar. "Then again, not like we have much moveset information to go on with this Nomu, huh?"

"It was staring at Setsuna because it had multiple Quirks!" Izuku shouted, jumping after his friend and pulling ahead; Tenko was slower than him, and less good in a sprint, so Izuku took the lead. "And we don't know what it has besides Shock Absorption-"

"Trust the Mad Doctor over there to give it some bullshit abilities to soft-check your favourite Quirk!" Tenko looked behind him, and yelled out suddenly, in surprise. "Izuku, above!"

"Huh?!" Izuku's head snapped up to the sky in response, and his eyes widened in horror. Nomu hadn't yet closed the distance on them, to his surprise, but with its enormous arms it had launched chunks of the concrete rubble around them skywards, chunks which were now about to rain down on Izuku and Tenko like a meteor storm from the heavens. "Ah! SMASH!"

Fortunately for Izuku, even with a slight ringing in his ears, Air Force was proving as responsive as it had ever been. As Izuku swung his right hand forward in an arc, the blast of air created by his Quirk lashed out like a wave; while the response time wasn't quite enough to shred through the solid concrete, it was enough to launch them away, tumbling in the opposite direction and out of harm's way. "It's toying with us!"

"I see you're rather fond of Air Cannon, Izuku!" The Doctor's voice hadn't lost all of his amusement as he shouted at Izuku, from a fair distance away, but there was an underlying edge of fury in it now. The attack on Kurogiri, who was now curled up in a ball at the old man's feet, had changed his opinion very quickly, it seemed. "It was one of the Master's favourites, you know? Such a shame you desecrate that by yelling 'smash' every time you use it. Such worship of All Might… it is unfitting for the holder of All For One!"

"Don't you think that's for the holder of All For One to decide themselves?" Tenko bit back, as Izuku sent two more blasts in the direction of Nomu, futile as they may have been. "For them to make their own choice?"

"Choices like this, you mean?" The Smashes sent by Izuku hit the chest of Nomu square-on, but the creature barely budged under the impact; even if they weren't boosted as much as they could be, it was alarming to see how the creature shrugged off something which could be so devastating as an attack. "Keep up the pressure like you are, Nomu. This is entertaining to watch."

"Entertaining?!" Izuku cried out, narrowly twisting out the way of Nomu launching a manhole cover in his direction. The fact that the city in the Ruins Zone was set up with such attention to detail would have been fine at any other time, if it weren't for the extra ammunition for the beast to throw at Izuku with such powerful arms. "You're just giving us time to come up with another plan-"

"Am I? A plan to do what? To win?" The Doctor laughed out loud, no humour present in his voice. So hollow. "In case you haven't noticed, Shock Absorption is a wonderful Quirk. Tested to its extreme, it could handle a punch from All Might. Perhaps not at his prime, but certainly I'd vouch for its sturdiness. And here you are, Izuku, getting shut down completely by it. You aren't even pushing Air Cannon to its full potential, and you think you stand a chance? I'm being kind by delaying the inevitable for you!"

"Boost…" Izuku murmured under his breath, before palm striking the air in front of him to send a blast at Nomu's head this time. "I'm not going to give up! No matter how high the odds you stack against us are… we will find a way! To overcome!"

"How foolish… listen to yourself, Izuku. To the desperation." The Doctor shook his head, as Nomu turned its head into the air blast and let it glance off like a bouncing ball. "You lack proper training, and you're content to languish here living a lie, using Air Cannon as a crutch to hide having to learn the other Quirks in your arsenal? I bet you don't even know half of what you have at your fingertips, and yet you pretend as if you could ever stand a chance of becoming his equal! When you can't even win against Nomu!"

"It's not your fingertips that will win this, Izuku."

Izuku looked up in surprise as Tenko muttered his reply, barely audible even for Izuku. "Wh-What do you mean?"

"He wants you, right? That's the end goal of this boss fight, to capture you or hurt you. I'm just a NPC to him and to Nomu. Which means..." Tenko's eyes narrowed, sidestepping another piece of debris thrown by Nomu, who appeared otherwise content to lift large chunks of concrete the size of a motorbike and toss them like cannonballs at the two boys. "They brought this Nomu here to fight you. To stand against whatever they know is in All For One. My Quirk… probably didn't come into their consideration when planning this."

"But…"

Total destruction. That's the gameplan.

Izuku's train of thought caught up, even as he had to throw himself prone to the floor with Tenko to avoid being hit by the latest attack. In the dust, he tilted his head to his friend, his voice wavering with uncertainty. "You… if we use Decay on it, Tenko-"

"It dies. I know. And yet I can't see there's any other way." Tenko grimaced, hearing the sound of crumbling brickwork behind them as Nomu's attack struck another ruin. "They want you, sure. But that means their attention is on you. You can buy me a distraction… and I can finish this. For good. Without their Nomu… they have no front-line DPS. It's drastic, but we can win."

"I-Is that even right?" Izuku instinctively popped up from the ground, launching off another Air Force Smash with a flick of his fingers and this time aiming for the Doctor's legs. As Tenko leaped up to join him and run for cover, the squawk of indignation was enough to confirm that he had hit his target. "Whatever the Doctor did to it… it's a living thing, Tenko-"

"Is it? You sure?" Tenko ran his hand over a number of chunks of wreckage as they moved, and Izuku finally realised that his friend was being tactical. By crumbling the larger chunks with Decay, Tenko was depriving Nomu slowly of more material to launch at them from a distance. "Some existence. That thing's a mindless slave to its master, and you know it. It's not doing anything creative when it attacks, it just reacts on base instincts and commands from the one holding its leash. Even if it is alive… it's too far gone to be saved, Izuku."

"I…" Izuku wanted to argue, but it was hard to come up with something more convincing than what Tenko saved. "I don't like it…"

"I know you don't. Because it was still a person, once." Tenko slid to a halt by Izuku's side, taking cover behind the twisted metal shell of a fake car and keeping eyes on Nomu, as Izuku willed himself to boost up his Quirk as quickly as he could. "But we've got to be pragmatic about what our options are. It's a step off the perfect good route, but the Doc sicced this thing on us to kill us. If we want to get out of here alive… my Quirk is the way we achieve that."

"Tenko…" Izuku gritted his teeth as he fired off another blast, this time aiming towards the ground and mentally cheering as it sent a dust cloud flying towards Nomu and the Doctor. The pain in his elbow as he sent it was a sign that perhaps he had been aiming too much at the ground, or that he had put too much power into it too soon after the last Smash, but these were desperate times. Tenko was the living embodiment of that. "I… I-I can't ask you to do that! To live with doing that!"

"Lucky for you, you don't have to ask. You're not the one making that decision." For the briefest moment, Tenko grabbed onto his sleeve and pulled with all bar one finger; Izuku's eyes met his, and were briefly stunned by just how determined they were in the face of such evil. "I told you once, and I'll tell you again- I went down this path because of you, and I stick to the rules no matter how much I might think they're stupid because I want to show you I'm doing things the right way. That I can be noble and shit, too. But this… this is one of those times we can't stick to it, Izu. There's no way we can make sure that we're safe without taking that thing's life... and I'm okay with it, if that's the price to pay."

You know he has a point.

Izuku wanted to argue. He really did. The fact was that if they stuck to this plan and pulled it off, Tenko would have blood on his hands, and he hated that it seemed like the only viable way to get through. It was counterintuitive to what made a good Hero, after all… but right now, he couldn't see any other way. "... Okay. If you're sure."

"There's no way you're changing my mind." A solid pillar of rubble buried itself into the ground beside the car, Nomu's aim slightly off as it missed Tenko, and he sighed as he slammed his hand against the makeshift weapon to crumble through it. "I'm surprised, though. Big dumb brutes like Nomu… they're made for rushes, attacking up close. The Doctor's holding back on us."

"He's… probably cautious of me, to be honest." Izuku looked down at his hands, still glimmering with the black and red energy he now knew to be a hallmark of All For One. "I'm not trying to sound a-arrogant, but I have his old master's Quirk, so he probably knows more about what I can do than I can. And if he's worried he might be heading into a trap… he won't send Nomu charging straight in without knowing what I can do. Not if he can learn first, and plan around it."

"Perhaps. Maybe he just likes us being able to have a mini-cutscene in the middle of the boss fight. Good for building the atmosphere, huh?"

Izuku stared at his grinning best friend. "... Sometimes I don't know where to even begin with you."

"And yet you wouldn't trade me for the world."

"... No. No I wouldn't." Izuku shot a faint smile at Tenko, before his eyes shifted back to Nomu, which appeared to be itching to jump back in and get up in their faces. "So I'm the distraction? Getting you an opportunity to hit with Decay?"

"As much as you're kinda the main protagonist in the group, yeah, you're gonna have to leave this one up to me." Tenko jerked a thumb towards his chest with pride. Reckon you can come up with something for me?"

"Perhaps… I just don't know what I can do with Air Force like this." Izuku sent another shot teasingly at Nomu, unsurprised when it seemed to have no effect. "Every attack I've launched so far has been useless. I don't know how much I have to boost it to be able to make a dent-"

So narrow-minded… there's more than just Air Force, Izuku.

Izuku's eyes widened as he felt the crackle of energy from his Quirk running up his spine, spreading into his chin and his cheeks, and he saw an opening. If Shock Absorption was going to nullify the effects of any air blasted by him at Nomu… then that was just one Quirk he was able to use. The point of All For One was that it held multiple Quirks, as well as the ability to give and take Quirks. So if one of the ones he could use wasn't going to be helpful in this situation… "I've got it."

"Hmm?"

"I remember… what Midnight said to all of us when he arrived." Izuku's mind raced as he spoke, as he spotted an opening in the base of one of the abandoned buildings built by Cementoss in the Ruins Zone. As his mind flashed back briefly to the day Setsuna learned about his true Quirk, and one of the Quirks he learned he had taken. As his palms began to crackle in readiness to use what he had acquired… the day Himiko came to his rescue. "No good Hero… only has one trick!"

"That's the voice of a dumbass Izu using tactics so crazy they have no right working… you don't know how glad I am to hear that." Tenko grinned, and stood up, his gym uniform covered in dust. "What's the plan?"

"What's the last thing he'd expect us to do?" Izuku pointed one finger to his eyes as he stood up, and hoped Tenko got the idea. "... We charge."

"Full frontal assault… into the valley of death, huh?" Something in Tenko's gaze sparkled, and Izuku knew he understood. "Lead the way… partner."

"Oh ho, what's this?" The Doctor appeared to laugh, condescendingly, as the two of them moved from behind the wrecked car, clear ground between them and Nomu who shrieked in their direction. "You're done cowering and hoping for a miracle, Izuku? After all Tsubasa told me, I shouldn't be surprised that you turned out so craven."

He's grown soft in his old age.

"I'm sorry to disappoint you… but I've got no reason to hide anymore!" Izuku pushed himself forward with the slightest push of Air Force from his palms, and surprised himself by how quickly he began to sprint, Tenko's long strides keeping pace behind him and the black hood of his costume billowing behind him. "If I'm the holder of All For One… then that means I have the power to win this!"

"A suicide run? I'll indulge you!" For the briefest second, Izuku had thought that he had seen some fear flash across the Doctor's face, but it was gone in an instant. The old man swept his arm forward, and yelled. "Nomu! Charge them, full force!"

"REEEEGH!"

It had been exactly as predicted. The ground seemed to tremble beneath Izuku as Nomu pounded forward, its heavy footsteps completely at odds with the speed and agility it was showing. When the Doctor had proclaimed the creature to be capable of withstanding All Might at its prime, Izuku had written off the boast as just empty words, but as it approached at frightening speed, he knew there was truth in what he had said. And as it closed the ground between them, one black fist rearing back to summon a powerful blow…

It was right where Izuku needed it. "Tenko, NOW! FREEZE!"

The throbbing feeling was just as bad as it had been the first time he used the Quirk taken from the Yakuza all those weeks ago (it felt like a lifetime, compared to his time at UA), but Izuku could not have been more grateful that he saw the white flash across his eyes like wildfire. As Freezeframe struck home, Nomu went rigid, its forward momentum causing it to continue to skid, and Izuku had to throw himself into a slide to slip underneath the immobilised creature's legs as it continued to slide forwards...

Right into the path of Tenko. "Vicious Contact- Decay!"

Tenko's own slide was far less controlled than Izuku's, but the end goal was there all the same. As he slid past Nomu, all ten fingers of Tenko's clamped down onto the left shin of Nomu, before his arrested momentum swung him off to the side. Even as he tumbled to the ground in a heap, he crowed out loud. "Gotcha! Now stay down!"

"T-Tenko…" Izuku stayed down on the ground, focusing Freezeframe onto the creature with all his might as Decay took hold of the leg and began to crumble around the ankle of Nomu, but it was a losing battle. His head was beginning to pound from the pain of using the stolen Quirk, and he could swear there was blood beginning to run from his nose. "I… I can't-"

"Let go, Izu!" Tenko called, sounding alarmed. "Decay's got him now, we just let the damage over time stack. Don't hurt yourself!"

"G-Gah!" Izuku released the Quirk, and found himself wiping away at his face with the sleeve of his costume. He hated getting blood over something made for him by Tenko and his mother, but it was a needs-must situation. "I'm sorry-"

You're out of practice, Izuku. This is why you need to train more than just your favourite Quirk.

Izuku groaned, as Nomu shrieked in distress and crashed to a stop on the other side of them, Decay running down its leg and turning its foot to dust. He didn't need that treacherous reminder, right now, with the pain he was in. "It… it worked, though-"

"It did…" Tenko snorted, despite all of the tension of the situation they found themselves in. It wasn't hard to see why, when Nomu collapsed to the floor without a foot, waving its legs in the air as Decay spread up one of them. "Sorry, Doc. Looks like I might have trashed your little science project-"

"Remarkable... " Whatever response Izuku had been expecting from the madman stood exactly where he had been, with Tenko and Izuku between him and his creation and with Tenko's Quirk eating away at the minion, that wasn't it. "Such destructive potential on another living being… you would have been unparalleled as a villain, in another life. And to think they let you into Heroics in spite of this?"

"You… don't sound too upset, old man." Tenko bunched up one hand into a fist and glared at him. "Decay won't stop. You've lost-"

"Dear boy, whatever gave you that idea?" The dark glee in that response set alarm bells ringing in Izuku's head, as the Doctor turned to the writhing form of Nomu. "Nomu? Tear the leg off. Before it spreads."

"Huh?!" Izuku's jaw actually dropped at the command, and just how instantly Nomu obeyed. If the beast with an exposed brain and enormous black muscles hadn't been an atrocious sight to witness before, the ease with which it reached down with both giant hands and ripped at the knee. The disgusting sound of flesh and bone crumpling like tissue in its grasp was just as bad as the screaming noise that burbled in its throat, as Nomu mutilated itself before his eyes and removed its decaying leg. "H-He actually d-did that?"

"What the hell is wrong with this thing... " Tenko was struggling to find the words, clearly. "You… you beat my Quirk, but he's now down a leg, why would you-"

"Clearly you weren't listening earlier when Izuku worked out what makes Nomu tick." The Doctor tapped his cane once on the floor, staring past Tenko. "Decay is a remarkable Quirk. Nothing like your weasel of a grandmother, but nonetheless, an impressive power. Shock Absorption is entirely useless against such a Quirk… but consider this?"

"Nomu…" The realisation of what the Doctor meant hit Izuku a second too late, as the end of Nomu's broken limb began to ripple and grow. What looked like raw flesh began to coalesce and form in the same shape as before, and in a matter of seconds, Nomu lurched upright on unsteady feet before him, able to stand once again. The colour of the flesh may have been a lot paler than the leg had previously been, pockmarked skin the indicator that Decay had done some damage, but… it was back, and even if Nomu took a couple of apprehensive steps back away from Tenko and Izuku, it was in enough shape to fight again. "Nomu… has multiple Quirks."

Regeneration… With a Quirk like that working, it could be unbeatable.

"Astute, Izuku, if a little slow on the uptake." The Doctor was clearly enjoying himself now as he spoke. "I didn't know about your Quirk when I made him, Shimura. It was simply a happy accident when I was building him that Super Regeneration bonded so well with Shock Absorption, and turned Nomu into a juggernaut. So much went into Nomu to make him what stands in front of you now… so as valiant as your efforts were, I'm afraid you were doomed to fail with this little plan of yours."

"Fucking hackers, man…" Tenko reached over to scoop Izuku upright off the floor, steadying him. "What are we gonna do? This thing's got more HP than I was expecting-"

"We hit it again." Izuku's voice was low, because of how wary he was about Nomu and what it was capable of powering through. But he didn't stutter, much to his own surprise. "Look at its leg, Tenko… look at the skin. It's not the same colour as it was before, it's patchy."

"... Huh. You're right." Tenko finally saw what Izuku had been seeing, and breathed out through his teeth in surprise. "It… isn't the same as it was before. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"I am." Izuku nodded his head, and saw an opportunity, a glimmer of hope to capitalise on and turn the fight. "... We keep going."

"So that's the plan?" Tenko asked, as Izuku began to walk forward slowly, not rushing Nomu and keeping eye contact every second. "A war of attrition, Decay versus Super Regeneration? We find an opening, and kite long enough that we wear it down?"

"Until Super Regeneration loses, yeah."

A war of attrition… or a short, sharp shock to the system?

Izuku tried not to gasp out loud, as he felt a brief thrill at the way the energy from his Quirk rolled over his forearms. The thought had come out of nowhere, and yet it was so simple, so obvious now he thought of it, that it would be devastating. The fact he had managed to somehow pull an even better plan out of thin air, and find a way to completely turn the tables on their enemies… it made him stand so much taller, and the adrenaline rush was enough of a reminder of why he had always dreamed of being able to stand tall and face the worst villains in society to save people.

"Or?"

Izuku lowered his voice, at a volume he knew only Tenko could hear, as he felt the true power of his Quirk spread to his fingertips again. "Or until Nomu can't use that Quirk anymore."

"And I thought your hero worship couldn't get any worse! This is how you choose to re-engage?" The Doctor, behind the two of them as they walked forward, called out. "Rushing headlong at a stronger enemy and hoping something works in the end? The Master always had a plan, Izuku, and the Symbol of Peace fell because of his strategies, but you…"

"I'm nothing like your Master. I want to save people. I want to make the world a better place." As Nomu shook the dust from its shoulders and roared, staggering forwards into another charge, Izuku steeled himself, and shouted. "Whatever legacy All For One made for himself… is not mine! Hyaaaah!"

As Izuku's hand stretched out forward, the world appeared to go deadly quiet around him. He could tell that the Doctor was yelling behind him, furiously crying out to Nomu to try and get it to dodge. He could tell that Tenko was already beginning to run faster than he was, launching himself towards Nomu in long and bounding strides with his hands outstretched. And he could tell that Nomu was staring right through him, no emotion in those brain-dead eyes but perhaps a slight realisation that something was coming…

… The familiar black tendrils, crackling with red lightning, summoned by All For One.

Brace yourself!

It had felt like eternity the previous time, watching the tendrils fly at Kurogiri, before the agony of using All For One on a person with multiple Quirks had nearly overwhelmed Izuku. This time, he had known it was coming. He had known what would hit him the second his Quirk made contact with Nomu, so time didn't stand still as his attack shot out this time, but the pain… it was even worse than Kurogiri. So bad that he nearly keeled over where he stood, some unknown force the only thing that kept him upright.

Whereas Kurogiri had been like white noise, a keening whine that drilled right through him, this time it was like discordant screaming in his head, raw and primal and full of torment. Whatever the Doctor had done to Kurogiri to make him the way he was, there was still some semblance of humanity in him, but Nomu? It felt like a panicking animal dragging its claws down his spine, scrabbling for leverage. And yet there was something else in there, something he hadn't been expecting. A terrible undertone… like something crying out to be put out of its misery.

Get out. Now.

He didn't need telling twice.

As he pictured the bulging leg of Nomu growing back from a ruined stump, some strand of something brushed before his eyes, and Izuku pulled, snatching out as quickly as he could in his head and killing his Quirk's output with a gasp. With whatever it was in his grasp, Izuku felt his stomach twist and the ferrous taste of blood in his mouth, but from the way Nomu squealed it was enough for him to know that his attack had worked. He had taken from Nomu, and now Tenko had his chance. "Tenko! Go!"

"Hraaagh!" His friend didn't hesitate, charging as he had before, taking advantage of Nomu's distraction from the attack Izuku launched at him. With a triumphant yell, Tenko's skinny hand rose high, all five fingers descending down onto Nomu's huge left hand in one devastating attack. "VANQUISH!"

Izuku could only stand still as he watched the hand come down with bated breath, waiting for the moment to come. As he watched all five of Tenko's fingertips come down on the skin of the creature, the areas beneath his fingers immediately crumbling slightly under the effects of Decay. As he watched Tenko's Quirk begin to spread in Nomu's left hand once more…

Only for Nomu to reach out with its right arm at a speed he barely registered, one giant fist punching into Tenko's skinny chest and sending him flying with a loud crack. "CRUUUUGH!"

"N-No…" As Tenko crumpled to a heap on the floor, his left leg almost appearing to bend beneath him as he fell, Izuku felt bile in his throat as he saw the way his best friend collapsed face-down. Nomu had just punched him with a force that had laid Himiko out in one blow, a force that was clearly enhanced by multiple Quirks… and right now, all that mattered was his friend's safety. "Tenko, no! Get up-"

"Really, Izuku? The same plan as last time?" The Doctor's callous voice came from behind Izuku, so patronising and cruel; the fact that Tenko appeared to fit briefly on the floor somehow kept Izuku from turning on the old man. "Nomu just saw how your friend's Quirk worked. There might not be much left in his head now, but learning from pain like that is basic instinct. It stood to reason you would try the same plan again… even a Nomu can learn from its mistakes and adapt."

"I-I won't let you hurt him again!" Izuku's priority had to be getting to Tenko, protecting him while he was down and getting him out of harm's way again. Whatever plan he had made to try to beat Nomu, his friend's life was the most important thing, and after the way he had fallen, Izuku feared the worst. That was what prompted his charge at that moment, rushing forward before the ground shook beneath him, Nomu blocking off his path.

"GREEEGH!" Nomu's breath was foul as it screamed in defiance, a towering black wall between Izuku and his best friend. "GRAAH-"

"Nomu? Deal with that arm, won't you?" Izuku's eyes widened at the immediate response from the inhuman drone, how Nomu took one look at its hand and the Decay spreading across its palm and immediately used its other arm to rip the wrecked door off the shell of a burned-out vehicle nearby. There was absolutely no hesitation in how it raised the sharp metal it had torn off up and brought it down, like it didn't even care how much pain it caused itself by slicing off its own hand at the wrist, a bloody stump the price to stop Tenko's Quirk from taking hold. How could Izuku fight a villain so willing to harm itself to achieve its goal? "Now as much as I am enjoying learning more about your friend's Quirk, I rather think it's time he stopped interfering, don't you? This is about you, Izuku. Not Shimura."

"What are you-" Izuku had opened his mouth to protest, but in a flash Nomu had turned from mutilating itself for self-preservation into launching an attack. The door it had been wielding, the edge stained with ichor from where Nomu had sacrificed its own hand, came flying directly at his chest like a Super Move from the old American hero movies. If it hadn't been for the small burst of Air Force that he had instinctively stirred in his right palm, Izuku would have been impaled; as it was, he found himself sprawling to the floor to dodge…

As Nomu jumped, and landed with its feet either side of Tenko's ribs, one terrible hand reaching down. "N-NO! YOU CAN'T-"

"Nomu?"

"Iz…" Nomu had lifted Tenko's head off the ground with its remaining hand, and somehow despite the pain inflicted on him, Tenko had managed to stir briefly in the grasp of his attacker. He looked up, face bloody, and Izuku felt his heart pounding out of his chest as his friend's eyes met his. Tenko… had never looked scared like that before. "Izu-"

"Smash."

Izuku could barely even lift a hand off the ground in time to be able to do anything. He was still scrambling up onto his feet as Nomu's hand slammed down with Tenko's head in its grip, and the crunching sound made as Nomu drove his best friend into the ground… it would stay with him for years after the incident. If he even made it out alive… from the way Tenko went limp like a ragdoll, Izuku couldn't even be sure that he would manage that. "TENKO! TEN-"

"You know, in one respect, I should be a little impressed." The Doctor's voice had returned to just the slightest trace of smugness. "Here I was thinking you would hide from what you can really do your whole life, or at least until the truth was dragged out from under the rock of delusion you hide under, and into the cold light of day. Credit where credit is due though, Izuku, for you have recognised your true power and taken Quirks right before me. It seems finally that we have made some progress in the right direction."

"You m-monster…" Despite how he felt about what happened to Tenko, Izuku forced himself to stand tall, to not collapse onto his knees and scream. He had to, after all. This was his best friend who had been put down by these villains. But when Nomu made a gurgling noise in its throat, and he turned to see why, it was hard not to be completely defeated where he stood. "N-No… No! I took his Quirk! How… h-how is he doing that?"

"So you did…" The Doctor sounded surprised, to Izuku's disbelief, as like an insult being added to injury Nomu's Super Regeneration activated before his eyes. Even as the hand itself grew back smaller, and Nomu's bulging muscles appeared smaller in front of Izuku, the beast became whole once again, the whole of his attack for nothing. "Hm. That's rather fortunate. I thought you may have taken Super Regeneration, but was prepared to watch Nomu fight one-handed against you to see the fight through. But no itt seems… well. You're unpracticed with All For One, aren't you? Perhaps you ended up with Strength Enhancer, or Muscle Augmentation, or one of the base Quirks? He seems skinnier to me, at least."

"Tenko... " To Izuku's horror, he was now alone in facing the threat. Tenko now lay still on the floor, behind Nomu, and whatever he had ended up taking from the creature in front of him hadn't been enough to incapacitate it at all. He had gambled, with his plan, trying to create the best opening he could for his best friend… and he had lost. "Our… o-our plan-"

So close, Izuku.

"All for nothing, I'm afraid." The Doctor paused, barking a laugh about something Izuku didn't understand. "A shame, really, because for a brief moment I thought it had been quite a clever ruse until it backfired on you, opening your friend up to harm like that. It might be simple bad luck, or it might be that you haven't used All For One enough to make it work how you wanted, to do enough to turn this in your favour. Perhaps only a matter of more time using it would have given you the result you wanted."

"Then again…" The Doctor's cane slammed three times against a concrete block, sounding like the firing of a gun in the open space of the Ruins Zone. "Your time has rather run out, hasn't it?"

"Wait-"

"Nomu? We've drawn this out long enough. I've seen all I need to." The Doctor coughed briefly, some stray dust throwing him off for a second. "End him."

The second that the Doctor confirmed Izuku's realisation, and Nomu launched forward like a missile, Izuku panicked. Now he was his attacker's focus, the only target, and he had nowhere to run, nobody he could call on for help. All he could do was try to stand his ground, and buy himself some time to come up with something else. "NO! FREEZE!"

He hated the feeling of white-hot pain that stabbed through his retinas as the white flash of Freezeframe went off, but it was the only thing he could think of to immediately save himself. He found himself rooted to the spot, gritting his teeth and focusing all of his attention on Nomu, its one good arm drawn back ready to strike and unable to move because of the Quirk. "Ah-"

No more running. You can do this.

"Is that your last gamble, Izuku?" The Doctor laughed, as the pain grew within Izuku's skull and set his nerve endings on fire. "Stalling the inevitable?"

"..." Izuku couldn't speak, every ounce of his willpower focused on maintaining his gaze on Nomu and holding out against the burning feeling from Freezeframe, one hand stretched out behind his back. Against Nomu… there was only one possible opening. The exposed brain at the top of its head. "Ahhhh-"

"You really do have no idea what you're doing, do you?"

Izuku had to act now, before he was overwhelmed by the Quirk he was using. Freezeframe was already causing his nose to bleed, and his own head was beginning to throb as if overheating; if he didn't use the opening, he could have caused serious damage to his own brain. "Hhhhgh-"

"Perhaps it's best you submit now, Izuku, before-" The Doctor's mocking criticism was cut off, as suddenly a flash of metal flew past him. "What on earth?"

This was the opening. This was it! As his mother's Quirk activated in his spare hand, Izuku said a silent thank-you in his head to her for the gift; Attraction of Small Objects had been exactly what he needed to be able to find something. He hadn't wanted to use such drastic measures, but Nomu had pushed him to his limit, hurt Himiko, and hurt Tenko. Tenko had been willing to cross a line for him, and he had to be willing to do the same to protect his friends, or what good would he have been as a friend to them? So as Himiko's discarded blade flew into his spare hand, and he grasped the handle, Izuku brought his hand up, ignoring the brief torture of releasing Freezeframe and stabbing down towards Nomu. "Hyahh!"

His hand came down… and Nomu's black fist caught him by the wrist, stopping Izuku dead in his tracks. "HREEEH!"

"Come on-" Izuku tried to push against the firm grip, but suddenly Nomu's wrist twisted and something horrible snapped in his arm, his fingers going completely limp. He didn't know what was the worst feeling: the feeling of his fingers going limp, and the sight of Himiko's blade falling loosely to the floor, or the sickening pain from his arm snapping in Nomu's grasp. Before he could even scream, Nomu's arm blurred, and Izuku found himself thrown over the beast's shoulder, slamming into the ground face-first and feeling something crack across the front of his face; the speed of the attack meant Izuku didn't know if it was his nose, his cheekbones, or both. "Gaaah!"

"I told you, Izuku." As Izuku landed face-down on the ground in a heap, the Doctor's comment was punctuated by Nomu using its one hand to flip Izuku over onto his back, before the bloody stump of its left hand was driven down into Izuku's ribcage. Nomu was so broken as a creation that it was even willing to use its own amputated limb to harm him, and harm him it did. There was a sound of cracking, and a horrible feeling in his chest, and Izuku saw stars; it was a miracle he hadn't immediately blacked out from how much had broken. "This is the end."

Get up, Izuku. After everything you were given… you don't surrender here.

"S… S… Stop this." Izuku could feel blood in his mouth, but that wasn't what made him gasp. It was the way his voice distorted for just a second, something else crawling in his throat. The voice that came out of his mouth… it wasn't his. It was deeper, older, something far more sinister, and he had no idea where it had come from. "W-W-What was-"

"Incredible…" Izuku's blurry vision focused on the Doctor standing above him, and it took a second to register that the old man had removed his goggles, his eyes lighting up for some unknown reason. "Of all the surprises… and all it needed was for me to scratch the surface enough."

"I-I…" Izuku coughed, screaming pain across his ribs as he did so, but it was the only thing he could do to expel some of the bloody phlegm in his mouth. "I d-don't… underst-stand-"

"You don't need to, dear boy. You just need to yield more." The Doctor pointed at him with the cane, and Nomu's punch came down again. Izuku didn't even know what part of him had been able to muster the energy to activate part of his Quirk, but Nomu's jab at his stomach bounced backwards, before the energy became too much to tolerate for Izuku and he wheezed in pain. "Impact Recoil? Defiant until the end! Keep it up, Nomu! There's more where that came from, I know it!"

Crack. Subconsciously Izuku had been able to react in time before, enabling Impact Recoil to send the brunt of the damage back at Nomu, but he wasn't able to muster the energy for this again, as Nomu stamped down onto his foot; it almost felt as if his toes had been crumbled into dust by the stomp of Nomu. It was all he could do not to throw up.

Crack. The next punch drove into his shoulder, and Izuku's vision went white. It felt as if his arm had been ripped from its socket by the force of the blow; it probably had.

Crack. Another kick, driven into his chest. Now Izuku threw up, coughing up blood, forced down further into the ground. So much pain, amplified as Nomu ground his foot against his chest, and black spots formed in his vision…

I have a bad feeling about this.

"It appears you're fading on me, Izuku." The Doctor's voice was distant, like a recording playing on a speaker, like a long-lost memory. He was standing right above Izuku, and yet as Izuku's vision began to fade, he seemed so far away. "No matter. We'll be picking this up again soon. It appears there's more to you than meets the eye…"

The taste of blood in his mouth and a ringing in his ears, Izuku succumbed to darkness, and in his last moment of consciousness dreaded how futile his efforts to save his friends had been.

(***)

As Izuku Midoriya slumped into unconsciousness, Kyudai Garaki let out a sigh of barely-contained relief, and shook his head at the sight in front of him. He had not expected it would be easy with the boy, but… this was beyond all of his wildest expectations.

The boy had been too far gone. Kurogiri's past concerns over whether they should have intervened sooner were borne out, in some respect, because it was clear that the boy idealised the dream of what Hero society could have been, rather than the reality of what a society full of Quirks had done to the world. It was naive, and took no account of the state of things as they were, but as they could hopefully have been. Garaki had possessed such a mindset himself, once, a long time ago. His work on the Singularity, and his association to All For One, had put paid to that very quickly.

There were probably other ways they could have done it, in hindsight. Launching an attack in broad daylight on the school he considered to be his safe haven had not been Garaki's first choice, but the fact remained that he held All For One. The stakes were high enough that it merited such drastic measures to isolate him and, if possible remove him from the path he had set himself on. Garaki could not in good faith allow someone unworthy to continue to hold it.

Izuku had surprised him though, bloody and broken as he was. It wasn't that he was unwilling to use the Master's power, at all, for he had used it on Kurogiri. A sufficient amount of danger thrown at his friends was enough to act as a catalyst, and Garaki couldn't help but be impressed a little at that. Combined with his instinct to try to turn the fight against Nomu by targeting its Quirks, and Izuku had some potential in him.

The Doctor had heard his voice there, at the end. The legacy was not lost after all.

It was a fortunate thing that Nomu had won, because now Garaki could dictate the terms from here. Izuku's potential would not be met here, playing at something he would never be fit for, and now he could be brought back to Jakku. If the boy was not swayed by Garaki's offers, then something else may be in time; even if that were not possible, the Doctor had learned a long time ago how to extract a Quirk and impart it on another. Everything he had ever done would have been for a great purpose.

There was even hope that he may be able to recover the Quirk Izuku stole from Kurogiri. Garaki rather hoped that was possible, given the work that had gone into him in the first place. Fixing the damage before it became irreparable… that would have to be a priority.

"It… it's o-over." Kurogiri remained prone on the floor some way away from him, but there was something slightly more hopeful in his companion's voice now, speaking up now that all of the chaos was over. "The… the boy is d-defeated."

"He did. And did you hear him, before he fell?" Garaki lifted his goggle to wipe away a tear which had sprung up, treacherously. "It has been such a long time, but I always clung onto the hope that one day, something might emerge again. Ever since we learned that the Master had been assessed as Quirkless in the wake of Incident Zero… I longed for its survival. And survive, it has."

"Y-You sound... " Kurogiri fell silent, his distorted voice at a loss for words for a second. "Optimistic. I th-thought the boy rejected us-"

"Oh, he did, idealistically," Garaki replied, cheerfully, as Nomu took a step back from the boy's limp body and stood up straight again. "But actions speak louder than words, Kurogiri. He used it. Izuku Midoriya used All For One, willingly, without my urging and without any prior training. He tried to use it to dismantle his opponents and give him a better chance of winning. That… that is something that shows promise. And right there, at the end… there is something else in play now."

"You to-told Nomu to kill him, at first-"

"Perhaps I was too hasty. I allowed emotion to get the better of me, certainly. But there's too much at stake for me to risk losing everything now." Garaki removed his goggles and wiped them on the hem of his coat, as he spoke. "Better to take him with us, and keep him under close supervision. Study him, if you will. We will learn so much more about what we're really dealing with in time."

"I… I see." Kurogiri made a funny noise, trying to stand again. "D-Doctor, I-"

"Rest yourself, friend. Johnny will handle the strain, and I will put this right in due course, whether or not the boy yields what he stole." Garaki tapped his cane against the floor once, and stashed his goggles into a pocket, reaching for the little radio he carried which connected him to his laboratory, to Johnny and the others. As he tapped, Nomu's head snapped up, and the beady eyes focused on him. Awaiting orders. "Nomu. Bring the boy. Carry him with us. We're going home."

Nomu's response was to snap away from him, and take a step towards Izuku. "MURR…"

"Good." Garaki paid no heed to the brainless minion as it stepped forward. There was no need to worry if he would follow orders; unlike the most bloodthirsty of his High-End brethren, this particular specimen listened when it was told to stop, and didn't seek unnecessary battles for its own desires. His priority instead was on getting out of UA and back to the laboratory before the gains for the day were lost, and so he brought the little radio to his mouth and cleared his throat. "Johnny? We need you. Me, Kurogiri, Nomu and the one Nomu will be carrying. Get us out, as fast as you can-"

"RUUUUGH!"

"Hold that thought." Nomu's startled screech was enough to whip Garaki's head back to the scene in front of him, and he nearly snorted at the sight. "Well now! The fight is lost, young man. Don't you think you're too late?"

"Shitty respawn timers…" A battered Tenko Shimura, blood pouring down one side of his face and plastering his fringe to his head like the most disgusting glue imaginable, grimaced back at Garaki as he pulled himself into an amateurish defensive stance. It took Garaki a second to recognise what had been done, as Nomu reeled away from the Decay user; it appeared that three of Nomu's outstretched fingers had been batted away with Decay, corroding to nothing. "Never get you up… when you're most needed."

"I hate to break it to you, young man, but the battle is already lost." Garaki allowed himself a little smirk, as Nomu screeched and Super Regeneration kicked in. The black skin on the fingers it had grown back was mottled, and they were skinnier than he remembered, but it appeared a desperate attempt by Shimura at the last second, that would be for nothing. "Your dear friend Izuku couldn't hold his own against Nomu, even wielding the power of All For One, held back by his childish daydreams. And now you stand here, without that power, thinking you can turn the tide? How foolish and stubborn you must be-"

"Yeah… I'm stubborn." Tenko drew himself up to his full height, and his lip curled defiantly. "Learned that from Izu. He'd never back down… not when his friends are in danger. So I don't care how hurt I get fighting this miniboss you made… I won't let you take Izuku. I won't let you… hurt him any more."

"A noble speech! And all for naught. You're a walking tragedy, Tenko Shimura. And I don't need you to let me do anything." Garaki laughed to himself. "Izuku is coming with me. And you're in no state to resist. Nomu has already beaten you once-"

"Yeah, and it's shitty I don't have a full restore to use right now. But it doesn't change a damn thing." Tenko flexed and unflexed his fingers, something in his eyes that the Doctor didn't recognise. "You just worry about the cutscenes after Nomu gets dusted."

"Well, the last of the Shimura line wants to meet his family." Garaki shook his head. "If you insist on throwing your life away by getting in the way… I won't shed any tears."

"Nomu… kill him."

Nomu's speed was incredible, no matter how many times the Doctor saw it in the flesh. Speed Enhancer was a useful Quirk to combine with anything, of course, but it was impressive the effect it had on Nomu, herculean bulk that it was. Practically before he had even finished the sentence, Nomu roared forward, a giant fist pulled back to launch a hook at the boy, an opening ready for the taking and a punch with enough power to rip his head from his shoulders…

A punch that was caught in both hands by Tenko Shimura, who despite skidding slightly backwards somehow held firm in its path. "Haaah!"

"What?" Garaki blinked, stunned for a second as Nomu's attempts to push forwards made no grounds on the skinny boy who somehow held his ground. "How? Impossible! Nomu… I designed him to be on a par with All Might for strength!"

"I told you…" Through gritted teeth, and against the overwhelming force pushing at him, Tenko somehow managed to glare over at Garaki. "I wouldn't let you get to him."

"MREEEEGH!" Nomu hadn't been built to be capable of expressing emotions, but there was something awful in that wail that completely threw the Doctor for a loop, some animalistic confusion at what was happening as Nomu's grotesque fists began to go grey and harden, the sign of Decay at work. "RRRUUUH-"

"Y'know, I realised, halfway through the fight before." Tenko's voice was trembling under the strain of holding back Nomu, but he still kept talking. "Super Regeneration, huh? He can grow back what gets destroyed…"

"What are you doing?" Garaki didn't know what was going on, and he hated it. "How… you're holding him back? Forcing Decay onto him… but you can't possibly win?!"

"But you can only regenerate... what's lost if you've got something left to build from. Stack enough damage over time…" Tenko growled, and looked Nomu dead in the eyes, and something sparked in his eyes that made the hairs on the back of the Doctor's neck leap up in alarm. "And he gets overwhelmed so he can't regenerate. So as long as I keep pushing…"

"No…" Garaki's eyes widened and he felt his mouth jump open in horror. Not because of the way Decay spread up Nomu's arms like wildfire, crossing into his chest. Not because of how the boy standing against them somehow hadn't crumbled. And not because of how despite everything that had been put into Nomu, all the resources to create a monster capable of going toe-to-toe with the greatest Hero of all time, the boy took another step forwards.

It was because of the lightning, white in colour, that crackled on the boy's arms and hands like St Elmo's Fire. "No!"

"Then I'll find the limit… of what he can take!" The lightning flared, a kaleidoscope in Garaki's eyes; for the briefest of moments it became every colour, white to blue to red to green to orange, purple to yellow and back to white again before Tenko Shimura's arms and eyes glowed. "And I'll save Izuku!"

"Johnny! JOHNNY!" Garaki instinctively grabbed the device in his coat pocket and yelled into the radio, the tables turned drastically in front of him in a way he had never foreseen. "We have to go! Get me and Kurogiri out of here, now!"

"B-But Nomu…" Kurogiri stirred, alarmed all of a sudden. "What about Mustard? Our Nomu? Even if w-we give up the lesser minions, we can't-"

"Nomu is lost! And forget the cannon fodder before we doom ourselves! We need to abandon this mission, NOW!" Garaki could hear the panic in his voice, the blood draining from his face as Decay spread down the Nomu's body, huge chunks of its black skin turning into grey stone before its eyes as his creation was overwhelmed. "JOHNNY! I NEED HELP, HERE- urk!"

Garaki was silenced by the vile black sludge, the trademark sign of the Quirk of one of his oldest Nomu. Even over many years of using him, before Kurogiri had become such a loyal companion, the taste of Johnny's Warping Quirk was something he could never get used to. It was a wonder he didn't also get tonsillitis after it was used as well as Johnny, and it was a blessing until today that Kurogiri did not cause such revulsion, but right now Garaki could not have been more grateful for the scene in front of him fading to black, the familiar confines of his laboratory around him once more.

Relief washed over him in waves, ice-cold and fierce. "Gack! Thank you, old friend. That was too close-"

His diminutive creation, resting on a desk to the side of Tsubasa's tank, whimpered, and Garaki knew that he would be paying the price physically for that for a week beyond. "Mrr…"

"I'm sorry… J-Johnny…" Kurogiri had collapsed on landing against the side of a filing cabinet, but he shot a grateful look towards the Nomu that had pulled them out of that situation. "What… what was that, Doctor-"

"The worst case scenario!" Garaki saw the comforts of his own chair and threw himself towards it, his cane clattering to the floor. "You were right, old friend, we should have acted sooner-"

"Nomu… the boy b-beat Nomu." Kurogiri sounded, for the first time in a long time, a little bit scared. "When the holder of All For One could n-not-"

"Nomu should have only been the first test for Izuku, but… this is troubling!" Garaki stared at the tanks, feeling his arm tremble as he gripped the rests on his chair and tried to compose his own voice. "We need to get to work. We need to fix you, to regroup, and get the High-Ends completed. I need time to consider some of the more positive developments, but… something terrible has happened here, Kurogiri."

"I-I don't follow…"

"It's the worst nightmare for the legacy." Kyudai Garaki span to face the screens in front of him, trying not to let Kurogiri see the agitation on his face, how his moustache trembled with pure unbridled fear. "Right there, in front of the young master all this time!"

"The power of All For One survived Incident Zero… but it wasn't alone!"

(***)

The screech of the dying experiment died down, as Decay made it all the way up to its neck and head. Those terrible eyes had been dead a long time ago, before it had even made it to the USJ, but now the power overwhelmed its body, and with a burble of noise in its throat, Nomu's dull eyes solidified and crumbled. The last piece of resistance, the exposed brain at the top, fell shortly after, grey dust crumbling into the wind and leaving no trace of what had once been a foe unlike any other.

Tenko Shimura, the palms of his hands aching from the strain of what he had done, finally let go of his Quirk then, and let his arms drop from where they had been grabbing onto Nomu's hand, wild energy dissipating around him. "Hahhh… I'm sorry, Izuku…"

He dropped to his knees, the silence deafening around him, and he only had eyes for Izuku, lying broken on the floor beside him. "I… you're safe now, Zu. I… I didn't let them hurt you."

His vision began to swim, black spots appearing in his vision, as his eyes moved to his hands, and even despite the blurriness and weakness overcoming him he could see the faintest sparks of white still dancing in the lines of his palms. "I just… what the hell was… that…"

Pain screamed up his arms, and for the first time Tenko became aware of just how broken they felt, how every nerve ending appeared to be on fire and his blood felt like it was boiling within him. The sound of his own heartbeat pounding in his skull was almost enough to drown out the noise of the emergency siren flaring up, but as he caught the faintest trace of it before collapsing completely, Tenko couldn't help but grin a little. "Teachers… here soon. We're safe… Izuku… we won… we..."

He didn't get to finish his sentence, toppling forwards and landing face first in the dust of the Ruins Zone. The signs of devastation surrounded them: the buildings with facades caved in by Izuku's Air Force, the crater from where Nomu had thrown Izuku, and the ash blowing on the wind, the last traces of the monster that had attacked them on the orders of a madman. At the centre of all of it, two broken young men lay, Tenko falling right by Izuku's side, both young men bloody and bruised and battered all over from what they had been subjected to...

But they were safe. For now.

Well done, Tenko.

(***)

A/N: … Surprise?

No long note from me this, this week. I just want to leave you on that hanging cliff and see the reactions to something I've planned since the beginning of this story. You want more answers… then you'll have to stick around for next chapter, won't you.

Please, as ever, read and review (just don't flame. It's really not hard to be constructive), and follow and favourite if you haven't already. Thank you for all your support.

Ya boy, out.