Shahryar - Oh, don't worry, they programmed Necromancer to automatically release certain people from zombified state. They were insane, not stupid.
MosesArk Reborn2000 - Heh, wait until you see the thing that destroyed Jaku. Although in that case it was a geuine case of lost control over the weapon (though for understandable reasons).
(***)
It took the Prime Minister ten minutes of very hurried talk with Mindscape to realize that the situation was disastrously bad. The reports received from Lieutenant General Muramoto after his failed attempt to stop the march of undead (Mindscape pointed out the similarities between this shitstorm and Necromancer's quirk, so they knew what was happening), only further hammered the nail home.
What to do?
What were the chances for the people under that quirk to recover? Original Necromancer's quirk permitted that. Made it rather easily. But if that was the case here, then destroying Romero's copies should free the people around them, or at least SOME people. There was no logistical way for the original non-copied Necromancer to spread their quirk to everyone in Matsuyama so quickly.
That suggested that the Zombie Virus was largely overhauled to operate differently than it used to. Most likely for increased lethality. Because, well, when exactly did All for One and the rest of the PLF leadership - present or past - proved themselves to be nice?
Creating and deploying whatever abomination Romero Fujimi was turned into was entirely in character for that organization.
There was really one option left.
"Oversee the evacuation effort." She told Mindscape through the video call. If there was someone who could get a maximum number of people out of Shikoku, it was Saiko Intelli. "I'm going to mobilize the Navy. Have every evacuation ship make radio check-ups every five minutes, if anyone misses it, their ship is going to the bottom of the sea."
This thing was infectious and clearly capable of self-propagating in an organized and methodical manner, nothing else could explain the entirety of Matsuyama falling so quickly. Thank the gods it started on Shikoku, the least populated of the Japanese isles. If it manages to spread to the mainland, the results will be apocalyptic.
She doesn't want to even imagine it crossing over to the continental Asia.
That was no time for half-measures. Saiko clearly understands that.
"I'll relay the message." Mindscape replies. "And I'll start drafting the civilian ships and airplanes for evacuation. I'm heading to the Emergency Command Center right now."
They were going to need it. Everywhere throughout Japan the army and pro-heroes were mobilized, just on the off chance that this damnable thing would manage to cross over from Shikoku.
The Prime Minister nods. The decision to call for a state of emergency after the PLF's raids started turned out to be the correct one. They had the tools at least checked up beforehand, and that gave them time. They needed it.
Speaking of.
"Mera." She turns her head to face another screen. On it was the present head of the Hero Public Safety Commission, Yokumiru Mera. "Activate the first and second stage of the Sword of Damocles. Buy us the time to figure out how to deal with this… situation and get as many people out of Shikoku as possible."
"Just the first and second stage?" Mera asks calmly. Something in his eyes is… vaguely worrying.
"Hopefully we won't have to activate the third stage." She replies. "There is a chance that the PLF is goading us into dropping a nuke on Matsuyama just to deactivate the quirk afterwards and accuse us of killing six digit numbers of Japanese citizens because we panicked or were this incompetent. Focus on getting people out of Shikoku."
Only one part of the talk left. She turns her head towards the third man in front of her. The Minister of Defense was currently unavailable, still en route back to the command center, forcing her to skip a level.
"How many soldiers can we deploy to Shikoku?" She asks.
"Not enough." General Kai Yoshiyuki, the JSDF chief of staff, replies dryly. "Judging from the speed of Necromancer's advance, the only unit that can make it in time is the Rapid Deployment Division."
"Send it there right now, then." The Prime Minister replies. She is about to announce the end of the call when the general speaks again.
"I suggest withdrawing that order." The Prime Minister gives him a shocked stare. "The RDD is our main reserve force in case of major crises, the JSDF equivalent of the HPSC' Fast Response Unit. We cannot lose it in Shikoku."
"That's…" She replies slowly. "...almost four million Japanese citizens, trapped in an island with a growing army of fucking undead. That defines as 'major fucking crisis' in my dictionary. Unless you can think of something worse than that?"
"Necromancer establishing a beachhead on Honshu." General replies calmly. "The island with almost ninety million Japanese citizens. And us needing the RDD to contain the outbreak before it spreads throughout the Taiheiyō Belt megalopolis."
Silence. The Prime Minister shrinks. More like, crumbles, really. Saiko Intelli would enjoyed the sight if the situation wasn't this fucking bad. And if she wasn't in reluctant agreement with general Yoshiyuki.
"Move it closer to Shikoku, but do not deploy it on the island." The Prime Minister eventually says. "All other means of transport available to the JSDF are to be used for civilian evacuation. Tell 14th Division to coordinate their efforts with local pro-heroes and emergency services in order to delay Necromancer's advance. Lieutenant General Muramoto is, from now on until the conclusion of the crisis, in charge of all governmental assets on Shikoku."
(***)
"We've finished marking the targets for the first stage deployment." The head of the shift in the Sword of Damocles command center tells Mera when the HPSC president enters it. "Second stage deployment ready as well, the SatCom is tracking the supervillain progress to make sure that it doesn't impede evacuation efforts. The Air Defense Command was notified. We're ready to launch at your orders."
Less than twenty minutes have passed since his hurried council with the Prime Minister. How many people died? Necromancer was clearly deploying its legions to sweep through the smaller settlements around Matsuyama, all while launching major offensive pushes through main highways leaving the city.
And going towards other major cities of Shikoku. If he was allowed to reach them, the casualties would be immense. The 14th Division and the 6th Engineering Brigade present on site could only delay it slightly, the former probably incapable of surviving a second clash unless the Sword of Damocles depletes the enemy forces significantly
The pro-heroes present on site were woefully low in numbers and skills. Shikoku was low on the governmental list of priorities, most of the attention being given to heroes working elsewhere. As a result, aside from exactly six S-Ranks (who pretty much divided what was left on the island), everyone competent enough tended to emigrate to Honshu.
Two of those S-Ranks were in Matsuyama when the outbreak started. Third was lost during the 14th Division clash with Necromancer's vanguard.
They had no more time to spare.
Yokumiru Mera concludes all the necessary identity check-ups. Ten minutes later, the Sword of Damocles falls.
(***)
Official name for the Sword of Damocles was 'The System for Strategic Deterrence of Supervillains'. It was a superweapon born both from the events of the first Paranormal Liberation War and the HPSC' observation of a generalized trend of quirks growing stronger with every passing generation.
When Revenant, Trumpet and Jetstream enlightened Momo Yaoyorozu about the complicated issue of maintaining civilization in a world when people like her and Shoto Todoroki are ten times as common, they didn't have to mention that the Sword of Damocles was the government's solution to it. She knew that.
Of course, she also knew that it was a stopgap measure. Then again, so did the government. There was a reason why the Prime Minister had Chronostasis locked up in a laboratory with all that was left from the research data of Doctor Garaki and Overhaul.
She had enough foresight to realize what it meant. Even if the phenomenon stabilized before the world would hit the Quirk Singularity, on, let's say, the early Dawn of Quirks level (when powerful quirks were a majority among the quirked, before the dissolution of them in greater population and subsequent slow build-up again), the results would be disastrous to the society at large.
However, if the government managed to obtain quirk erasing and quirk bestowal drugs, they could selectively 'reset' particularly overcharged quirk bloodlines. Like, say, take away Shoto Todoroki's quirk soon after its strength became known, giving him some much weaker ice quirk in exchange.
Of course, they wouldn't take Shoto Todoroki's quirk away. They would still need at least some strong and powerful heroes in case of some missed-out super-quirk holders, but the ones that would be allowed to keep their quirks would be under serious scrutiny to avoid people like Endeavor creating people like Frostfire.
The Sword of Damocles was supposed to maintain the society in the meantime, together with the army of heroes. The Prime Minister was fairly certain that it was going to work, as obtaining the quirk erasure drugs was clearly a matter of a few years, while even the most pessimistic of theoretical models predicted the collapse of Japan as a state due to the Quirk Singularity in fifty years. However, it was a 'better safe than sorry' situation.
There was a reason while multiple foreign countries ended up developing their own versions of the Sword of Damocles, clearly inspired by the Japanese' system (though typically without the third stage component).
Even the first stage was only deployed five times in history. On four occasions against particularly dangerous rampaging villains that defeated local heroes, and waiting for SS-Rank deployment was deemed as too costly in human life. The fifth one was against the Table of Rejects, during Miruko's failed coup.
It didn't perform up to the expectations, mostly due to the ToR knowing about the system and taking necessary precautions. The only notable kill was Shishido, whose command post was located thanks to the JGSDF cyberwarfare division.
Using the weapon originally conceived to eliminate people like All for One against an army of villains and scoring exactly ONE major kill was considered to be an embarrassment among the Sword of Damocles crew to this day.
The first stage of the Sword of Damocles was also referred to (among its crew or in documents) as Pinpoint or Decapitation Strike. SatCom, thanks to the information from lieutenant general Muramoto, managed to locate almost a hundred Armageddon copies in or around Matsuyama. The moment the Pinpoint started, they were all targeted by precise guided missiles launched from multiple facilities nationwide.
Some of the facilities were manned, others were fully automated. All of them were connected into a single system. For as much as technology hasn't progressed that much since the Dawn of Quirks, certain improvements still happen. Guidance systems were better than in the past, and the whole system had its own dedicated satellite support.
As a result, out of 97 located Armageddon' clones, 92 were destroyed by synchronized missile strikes, with minimal collateral damage.
Relatively speaking. But the collateral damage included zombies crowding around them, which made it tolerable. Especially as the results of their continuous operations would include much larger civilian casualties.
Second stage of the Sword Damocles was sometimes referred to as Containment or Scorched Earth. When establishing the system, its analysts loaded into a list of crucial infrastructure nationwide - crucial infrastructure that could be targeted by a missile strike in order to contain movement of a supervillain that somehow managed to shrug off heroes AND the first stage of the Sword of Damocles.
Not just things as obvious as bridges. The army had engineers travel around the country, taking notes of even such things as places overlooking major mountainous roads where a well placed missile could cause a landslide, restricting the advance of enemy force severely.
As one can expect, that particular map of Japan was considered to be one of the best guarded military secrets.
Now that the crisis started, SatCom was sending regular updates to the Sword of Damocles command center regarding Armageddon's advance. The moment the Scorched Earth was activated, the missiles targeted critical infrastructure behind enemy lines and between the Armageddon's vanguard and the fleeing civilians.
Bridges were blown up. Landslides were provoked. Railways were damaged. A train rushing north of Matsuyama, full of Armageddon' zombies that were ordered to attempt to take over the Kurushima-Kaikyo bridge connecting Shikoku with Honshu was derailed.
The first stage delayed Armageddon's advance by about fifteen minutes, as that's how long it took it to replace the lost clones. The second stage was only slightly more successful.
(***)
"Congratulations to the missile crews." Mera announces dryly once the reports start flooding in. "And to you. Good job. Have the JGSDF and Mindscape analyze the aftermath, then adjust the second salvo accordingly."
He really, really wants to take a nap. Alas, he is going to have to stay awake until this mess blows over.
"We might have a problem." The head of the shift leans towards him. "A big one."
"Bigger than an army of undead about to eat most of Shikoku?" Mera asks back. He can scarcely imagine something much worse, except if Shikoku was to be replaced by Honshu.
"The Sword of Damocles wasn't created with so many targets in mind." The officer replies. "It was supposed to delay or eliminate a handful of supervillains, not this."
"So?" Mera asks.
"We're going to run out of missiles for the first and second stage quickly." The officer replies. Mera's thoughts can be summed up to 'oh shit'. "The design was supposed to minimize collateral damage in the urban environment, hence the maximum precision. Otherwise we could as well call the JGSDF and have them carpet bomb the target's vicinity with their self-propelled missile launchers. Every missile was custom made with state-of-the-art electronics. Those things were really fucking costly. We have less than a thousand of them nation-wide, and we just send out a hundred and fifty in an opening salvo. And I'm not even sure if the production line for those is still operational. If not, it'll take us months to resupply"
Mera practically shrinks in his seat. It wasn't part of the plan. It was most certainly not a part of any of their plans. And if they fire out all the missiles, the Sword of Damocles' will effectively neutralize itself. Aside from the third stage.
What were the chances of the Paranormal Liberation Front staging this madness just to do that? They did, after all, already neutralize the Fast Response Unit. And Romero was almost certainly a form of a noumu, like Singularity.
"Get Mindscape to analyze the first salvo and adjust the firing solution accordingly." Mera replies after a few seconds of frantic thinking. "Tell her to focus on what works and try to limit ammunition spending unless absolutely necessary. We just need a few dozen missiles left for the threat to stay a threat, got it?" The officer nods.
This day was steadily getting worse and worse.
Twenty minutes later he received information of a 'riot' breaking out in Kochi, the largest city of Kochi prefecture bordering Ehime prefecture from the south east, inhabited by slightly above three hundred thousand people.
(***)
The Tomb of Armageddon (a name really fitting the theme of this day, Blackwing decided) was located in a hard-to-traverse part of Mount Ishizuchi, near the border between Ehime and Koichi prefectures. In a part of the area that wasn't visited by even the most crazy of hikers.
No decent views - it was in a forested valley. Hard to access. Resupplied in the past through the warp gate quirks, in order to make it perfectly secure and practically undetectable.
It was constructed by All for One, though with the help of some construction quirk holders and with Kurogiri being used to deliver materials to it. Constructed as one of the several noumu factories nationwide.
It was the only one that lasted until the final days of the first Paranormal Liberation War. The rest was located and destroyed by the heroes during the time of a slow decline of the First Paranormal Liberation Front after Deika was destroyed.
At least some of them due to the disgruntled MLA members selling them out to the heroes, no longer wanting the PLF to win now that it was run by Entropy. She and Izuku had a lot of serious fights over that before Haiboro Woods.
The one that was sold out by a disgruntled CRC member who had enough of their own faction corrupting a human form with their disgusting experiments was an outlier, really.
In order to not risk Cloud, they were warped to the facility's coordinates by Eclipse, the supervillain in question waving them goodbyes (and wishing them good luck) through it before closing it behind them.
"So, it's here." Blackwing announces in his dual voice. "We expected something more."
The exit wasn't technically used for anything other than evacuation in case of the PLF losing their warper somehow. It was pretty much a human-sized metal door at the bottom of a cliff wall.
Well, more like a small bulkhead. That thing was heavily reinforced, probably to the point of being able to shrug all but the strongest blows.
"You always had the penchant for the dramatic." Ragdoll decided to comment. "What did you hope for? A ruined castle over the edge of the sea?"
"That…" Tokoyami replies. "... would be cool." Ragdoll groans lightly. Blackwing turns his back on the door to face his small squad.
Seven templars, including Ragdoll. Humanoid robot acting as Mechanist's remotely controlled body. It had to be enough for now.
"Electric, Dark Crystal." He says. There is something deeply strange with them being able to order Dark Crystal - the pro-hero that used to be their idol while they were studying on the UA - around. Then again, she didn't mind. "Climb the cliff wall, locate the communication array and repair it. But do not activate it yet, in case there are some unsent messages waiting in the buffer."
They had some… secondary objectives for the mission. That was included. Apparently, the damage was only superficial, and Electric was good with computers and machines, so…
"Sure thing." Dark Crystal replies. "Electric, the first one up top is a loser."
Heh. Competitive spirit is nice. Might be freaking others out with the whole zombie apocalypse happening around this mountain, but they are exalted serving Judgment, the living goddess of quirks.
It's humans that die. None of the exalted enjoy killing people (their goddess didn't like people that found enjoyment in an act of murdering people that didn't offend them somehow), but they also tend to look at their deaths from a distance.
Tokoyami is fairly sure that most if not all of them would have attempted to help a human fleeing from the zombies in their vicinity, but if it didn't work, they would have accepted that immediately before returning to their holy mission.
Mechanist approaches the door and starts playing around the small panel next to it. After a few moments, the door begins to slowly unravel.
Tokoyami was right. That's almost a meter of steel, now sliding into the wall. Someone really didn't want anything to escape the facility.
"The facility is still powered?" Tokoyami asks. Mechanist turns its head towards them.
"It is not/negative." The machine replies in a sufficiently mechanical voice, for a second speaking in double voice to resemble Tokoyami although with different words. It then points towards something to the side of the panel.
A cable. Leading to a small box lying on the ground.
"A battery/power source." Mechanist adds. "Someone used it to power the door/entrance recently. No signs of hacking/intrusion. They knew the password."
Why was it left for them? The mystery thickens.
"Dark Crystal." Tokoyami says through the commpiece. "Once you're done with fixing the communication array, go down. Revenant said that he placed a security camera somewhere to the left side of the entrance. Find it."
The degree of paranoia needed to place such a camera in the middle of the forest and then send someone once a month through Cloud to check for any intruders for several years was… well, it told Tokoyami a lot about Midoriya's state of mind.
And about Japan. Because it turned out to be the correct thing to do.
Unfortunately, the only person who knew where exactly the camera was placed was presently busy with another assignment. So, Dark Crystal was going to have to improvise.
Once they hear Dark Crystal's acknowledgement, they speak again.
"I take point." They announce. "Mechanist after me. Ragdoll and Daylight to the right, Deceiver and Twister to the left. Chart, you're in the back, if something happens to us, you take command. Monitor the surroundings for hostiles."
Meeting Kashiko Sekigai once more after so many years - and among a group of newest converts to the Ascending Path - was a surprise, but a welcome one. Then again, being a class president of someone like Romero Fujimi (even if shortly) made your career significantly harder.
There is just so much shittery one person can deal with before they have enough. Tokoyami relates to that.
Judging from the look on Chart's face, she was really looking forward to dealing with the root cause of all of her past self's problems.
A few seconds later, Tokoyami enters the Tomb of Armageddon, followed by his comrades.
(***)
"Juggernaut's group got out of Shikoku." Tenko tells Izuku through a phone some time later. "Without any troubles."
"Seriously?" Izuku says incredulously. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm absolutely overjoyed. But that place is clusterfuck, and…"
"Juggernauts decided to realize his childhood dream." Tenko replies dryly. "And got himself a small fishing boat, so that he could go on fishing trips. Apparently paid for it together with a friendly neighbor or two. Kids loved to go on said trips with him. When I called him, he just packed them all, asked said neighbor to come along with their family, and set sails. He'll arrive to Honshu in an hour or two."
… well, at least someone managed to realize their childhood dreams. Izuku is genuinely happy for Juggernaut. He wasn't very talkative, but a great and loyal bodyguard and a former member of the Meta-Liberation Army.
"You know, I'd complain about misuse of the Support Network's assets, but that clearly counts as an additional escape route and it was clearly useful as hell so I'll let it pass." Midoriya replies. "So, Fireline is next?"
"Yup." Tenko replies. "Then we go for Eden. Unless an emergency happens, we'll get everyone out of the country today. The chaos will actually benefit us, as I don't think that the Navy has the ships to spare to look for Oka Mariner."
At least that one thing is clearly going according to plan.
Few minutes later the JSDF engineers blow up the Kurushima-Kaikyo to stop the Armageddon from crossing over to the mainland, effectively severing one of the few high-bandwidth evacuation routes out of Shikoku.
(***)
When Neito Monoma decided to start a stake-out in front of Ibara Shiozaki's house, he expected a lot of things. Like, some additional Paranormal Liberation Front members showing up, after the hoodie guy with blue hair and some five-finger point quirk judging from the artist gloves.
Hey, maybe even Izuku Midoriya or Momo Yaoyorozu dropping by for a cup of tea. It would certainly make stopping their reign of terror easier if they were nice enough to drop by without a small army of goons and supervillains.
Hell, Japan was at the point where he would react to seeing Overhaul or Re-Destro return from the dead and drop by Ibara's house to ask her for gardening tips with a healthy 'oh, well, that happened'.
What he certainly didn't expect was a genuine zombie apocalypse (with a six digit number of casualties in the first three hours) to start in Shikoku, with the army, pro-heroes and police collectively losing their marbles over the threat of the legions of undead crossing over to the mainland.
Wow, Japan. Just wow. Each time Monoma thinks you can't get any worse, you pull something like this. Absolutely spectacular.
"I…" Monoma headbutts the top of the car's steering wheel." … fucking…" He does it again. "... hate…" Again. "... this piece of shit…" Again. "... country."
He would like to say that he feels better after this, but no. He does not. Which is just, yeah, just fucking brilliant.
Okay, time to be remotely constructive. Yes, Japan might be living its final hours, but hey, he's a pro-hero.
And he has a villain in front of him. A villain that's clearly preparing to flee the area, at least judging from what he can see from here. A lot of movement inside, and Ibara just grabbed all the laundry that was being dried on the outside. So yeah, someone's preparing to flee.
Which is perfectly understandable with a freaking zombie apocalypse (seriously, what in the everliving fuck) breaking out in the country, but Monoma can't help but be suspicious about some deeper motives.
So, he pulls out a phone.
"Setsuna." He says after the woman picks it up. "I'm going to need a little help from your agency."
Let's keep everything under wraps if possible. Because the last thing that their former class wants after being treated as an extension of the Cursed Class is to have one of their members being implicated in that absolute clusterfuck.
Time since the activation of Armageddon: 5h
Est. number of civilian casualties: 620 000
Est. number of uninfected inhabitants of Shikoku: 3 000 000
Est. number of evacuated civilians: 250 000
Sword of Damocles: 15% depleted
(***)
Well, the Sword of Damocles is here. We can all figure out what its third stage is, hmm? Let's just say that Deika didn't enjoy getting subjected to it in the slightest.
Also, poor Monoma. That man gets zero happiness out of his job.
