Death

by tmb1112

Death is a Quirk that can only kill. A perfect Quirk for a villain, but what if the boy who manifested that power just wanted to be a hero? Enrolling in U.A. might not be enough when all your Quirk can do is kill people. Follow Zach Sazaki from his first day in Class A on a story that spans years, as he learns to be a hero, finds out more about his Quirk, and too much to summarize!

245. Chapter 245

Disclaimer: I don't own Boku no Hero Academia

Chapter 245:

"Did he just unlock the doors for us?" Sato asked. They stood in front of the glass doors in the middle of a wall of glass windows looking in to Heroally TV's lobby. Not a person was to be seen through them on the other side. The street around the young heroes was oddly quiet as well, with Ashido and Hagakure both glancing around nervously at the total lack of people around them.

This is so bad, Hagakure thought as her eyes lingered down the road back the direction they came from. She could see smoke rising over the tops of skyscrapers. Then her eyes shifted and looked through windows of other buildings around them, and she gulped at the sight of how many citizens were staring out and down straight towards them at the moment. It made sense that everyone had gotten off the street near Heroally now that she thought about it. Her head turned back forward and her fists balled at her sides thinking of the boy inside who had once tried to frame her for being a spy.

"What did you expect?" Jirou responded darkly back to the taller boy on her right side. She stood just next to Yaoyorozu at the center of the group in front of the doors. "He invited us here. Now he's inviting us in."

"Is it a trap?" Shoji wondered.

The question was serious, and it made many of the eleven students standing there hesitate and glance towards either Yaoyorozu or Iida to see what they thought. "Kaminari might, just think he could take us all," Iida began slowly. "He sounds as if he was planning on fighting Zach today."

Ashido's eyebrows narrowed towards her nose and she said in a low voice, "It wouldn't have taken Zach a second to kill him."

Hagakure and Ojiro both glanced towards the pink girl who said that darkly and with her hands shaking at her sides. Yaoyorozu glanced over her own shoulder towards Ashido too then lowered her gaze to the floor. She turned back forward, "Maybe, but it's up to us now. And we're not going in there to kill him. Raijin needs to face justice for what he's done here." I know it's not what you wanted, Zach. I could never say this to you. All those times you said you were going to kill him, I wished I could find the words to tell you not to. You believed that it would have been the right thing to do though. And that's something that we can't understand. Not as heroes.

"After we arrest him and bring back communications, we can give the pros back the ability to coordinate that the villains have taken from us," Yaoyorozu continued firmly to her classmates who all looked in towards her as she stepped closer to the building. "We cannot rush him haphazardly. However, the faster we recover the ability to digitally coordinate our counterattack, the fewer civilian casualties there will be. Keep that in mind."

Sero glanced around at his friends who stood with him at the doors to this building. Who would have guessed this would be our team to take on Raijin? His eyes darkened and then shifted up the wall of the building in front of him. He's in here. Our friend. Our worst enemy. "Should we wait for Bakugo?" Sero wondered in a quiet voice. "Or Kirishima?"

"I don't see Uraraka or Tsuyu either," Mineta added.

Ashido glanced either direction of herself. "Aoyama's not here yet-"

"This is the team we have. If they arrive I can work them into the strategy," Yaoyorozu said. Her voice hinted at her comrades to stay quieter though and they glanced at her then back at the building just in front of her that could have hidden microphones all over it. There were security cameras inside that they knew Raijin had access to, and they all guessed correctly that he could already see them right now. "Let us go inside. The hostages are waiting for our help."

"Right behind you," Jirou said in an intense voice. She stepped forward as Yaoyorozu did. Her taller friend reached forward her hands in a pair of black gloves that she was going to open the doors with. They opened up for her instead. The automatic glass doors slid to either side to create a gap for the vice representative of Class A who had formulated their strategy on the run here with her classmates.

"Oh Yaoyorozu," a voice came from the intercoms and filled the lobby of Heroally as she was still entering the doorway. "Or, I suppose I could call you, Creati. If you'd prefer to die as a hero, I would understand."

"What do you want from us to get you to release the hostages now?" Yaoyorozu called out. She knew he could hear her. The others behind her did not speak up or start yelling at the traitor who betrayed them all. They were a group of heroes who had one priority and one priority alone. The hostage negotiator continued calling to the hostage taker they assumed was upstairs, "Let them leave here, Raijin. You got a fight between yourself and us. Other heroes won't be coming here-"

"But if I release the hostages, where does my leverage go?" Raijin wondered back skeptically. "Say I want to order you to start fighting each other, what impetus do you have to listen to me if I can't kill any more hostages?"

"Any more?" Sero thought. He bit down but tried to keep his mouth shut instead of yelling that out. Thud. CRSH! He spun around though and his eyes bulged as Kaminari was not talking in the past tense as if he had already done it. Shards of glass broke apart around the body that just splattered on the pavement outside with a loud thud.

The thought of Raijin just throwing one of the hostages out the window after what she had just asked him to do made Yaoyorozu's stomach turn over. Her gut clenched at the consideration that it was her own fault and her poor negotiating skills that led this insane villain to kill one of his hostages. He's a madman. Don't try to reason with him. "What do you want?!" Yaoyorozu called out.

"He's just going to kill them all the longer we wait," Jirou hissed. She stomped forward, and Sato did the same with Ojiro and Ashido moving up as well. They moved farther through the lobby towards the elevators on the other side and stair access that they saw a sign pointing towards next to the elevators doors in cases of emergencies. "We have to-"

A television on the wall of a couch area on Jirou's left suddenly turned on. "This is the second floor," Raijin's voice came over the speakers. An office with six people cowering in it was shown on the tv. As if they could hear his voice too they started screaming for mercy as he said, "Don't make baseless assumptions, Kyoka. You'll just keep getting more people killed."

"Wait!" Yaoyorozu shouted.

"Don't do it!" Shoji yelled.

Electricity shot out of computers and into the phones people were desperately typing into. He cut off the screams as people running from their stations were hit in the backs by sparks and lightning that filled them. "You bastard-" Sero started yelling and stomping forward himself.

"Stop! Everyone!" Yaoyorozu held both arms out to her sides. Sweat covered her face but she calmed herself as much as she could. "He's trying to bait you. Remain calm. Level-headed."

"You want them to stay focused on your strategy, huh?" Raijin wondered through the speakers to the tallest girl in Class A who shifted her attention from one security camera down in the lobby to another. "Alright then. I'm interested. I'd love to see this strategy of yours, Yaoyorozu. I assume you have some kind of plan for how to beat me. So try it. Fight me and win, or I'll keep killing these hostages floor by floor. You don't have long until it's the third floor's turn. Show me what you've got."

Ding!

All four elevator doors on the other side of the lobby dinged as if the elevators had just reached their floor. Lights illuminated above the doors showing the 'L' symbol on the digital readers. It sounded as if Raijin himself was coming to fight them, but Yaoyorozu's head pulled back because it was all four doors that rang like that. "Get ready for multiple targets!" She yelled out, right before the doors slid open and revealed inside each the six large steel robots taller than any one of the students.

"The Anti- Anti-Nomu Terminators are also programmed with your fighting techniques and your Quirks' abilities, by the way." Raijin's taunts to his former classmates were mostly ignored by the teens who scattered around the lobby immediately as he sent a force of robots to fight them first. "These AANTs are literal killing machines. Unlike Zach, who was a different kind of killing machine." The robots in the elevators had their heads raised and glowing red eyes locked on their targets. Their arms had fists at the ends and circular openings around their wrists looking to be able to fire projectiles. The two in the front of each elevator lifted off the ground with flames shooting out of their metal feet. They shot out into the lobby and flew around at the scattering teenagers who reacted quickly to the robots.

They had been ready for Kaminari to come down there. It did not matter that there were 24 AANTs and only 11 of them, they were prepared and fought back without hesitation. Sero shot tape to his left and attached to the wall while covering up one of the security cameras at the same time. He swung himself through the air then cut from his left elbow and snapped that elbow forward along with his right. Tape flew at the closest robot to him and wrapped around both of its arms. He swung his arms out to the sides while retracting back into his elbows, moving the AANTs arms outwards while slingshotting himself forward and into its chest that he planted both of his feet against.

Sero bounced off the strong body of the AANT that was barely pushed back by his double kick. He ducked down as the arms he swung out grabbed back in towards him, and as he was dropping he fired Tape from his right elbow to wrap around the robot's red eyes that lowered down to track him. He wrapped around its head and swung himself as if on a vine around the back of the AANT's body. He did this as it was pointing its right hand down at him and starting to fire from the rotating gun on its right wrist around its hand. Sero's weight moved around the body of the AANT that had its eyes blocked but was intelligent enough to still track Sero's location and fire at him while it spun around.

Sero swung around the AANT's back, so as it fired while spinning after him, the AANT unloaded into five of its allies behind it that were also rushing in at the round-elbowed hero. Sero cut his tape as the arm was swinging after him faster and it was almost caught up. Without its eyes or the weight from Sero swinging around its body, the AANT could not target him as easily and rose its left hand in a programmed maneuver to get rid of whatever was obscuring its vision. It ripped off the Tape, just in time for its red eyes to see the thick tail swinging around that slammed into its head and sent it flying off the rest of its body.

Ojiro did not know if that was enough to fully destroy it in case Raijin had prepared for its head to be destroyed. After he smashed its head off, he spun around in midair and flipped to slam his muscular tail into the exposed wires of its neck. His tail dented through the steel and ripped apart a central processing core, while also sending the rubble into the floor and a cluster of purple Pop-Offs tossed precisely where Ojiro could easily target. Mineta spun his head and flung more Pop-Offs into a wall ahead of Shoji behind the AANT he was grappling with. Shoji's bottom arms extended forward and pushed against its torso to slam its back into the grid of Pop-Off balls that it got stuck to.

The AANT's back glowed brightly and flames shot out the back of its shoulders into the wall it pulled away from. The Pop-Offs stayed stuck to it, but the sheetrock ripped from the wall and the AANT punched its right arm forward that disconnected with flames firing out of its shoulder. The flame-propelled fist slammed into Shoji's gut and his body hunched forward. Then his right three hands that all grabbed that robot by the wrist crunched in and closed the barrels that were about to fire into him. Shoji snapped his head up while throwing aside the rocket fist, and he stomped forward and punched his upper left fist that lodged through the chest of the one-armed AANT rushing towards him.

"Behind us!" Jirou yelled out.

"GO!" Koda called out, and he pointed his right hand behind him while the pouches all over his costume opened up. Swarms of insects so small they just looked like black dots flew towards the front doors and the whole glass wall that just got broken through. "Focus on their eyes!" Koda called out.

Yaoyorozu fired her grappling gun and then pressed the button on her gun that she just attached to a winch on her side that was anchored to the floor. The tug on the AANT's right arm that she targeted was much stronger than if she had just pulled on it herself. Using the winch yanked it farther than expected so it aimed towards one of its comrades. The AANT was quick to react too though, and it stopped firing after a few of the bullets hit its ally that had too thick of armor to be pierced by the first AANT. Both of them turned their heads and glared back at Yaoyorozu who grit her teeth then reached up for her chest and a device that started coming out of it.

"Uh uh uh," Raijin's voice scolded from the intercom. Yaoyorozu's eyes darted to the right and a security camera not yet destroyed by her classmates. Then her head snapped to the left and she opened her mouth to scream at him not to. Another floor of people electrocuted though on the screen. Raijin spoke to her over the sounds of their screams that echoed through the room, "I know that E.M.P. of yours managed to take down one of our Spiders. You know how many man hours went into making those? How much money it costs to make weapons like those? Hundreds of millions of dollars. Weeks of work. All the shipping and transporting, it's just a real hassle for me if you keep disposing of my metal soldiers so easily."

"STOP KILLING THEM!" Ashido screamed in anger.

Something was wrong with that, Yaoyorozu quickly calmed herself and avoided focusing on that floor of people supposedly killed because of her attempt to knock out all power in the building. The television turned back off after every employee on the third floor was no longer moving. The floor of corpses were taken away so she could not examine that room any longer too, which made her focus on what she had just seen even more. Does he not want me seeing it? It was a threat, but why not let me keep witnessing the people who were just killed because of me? It would dishearten me. You know it would.

Jirou plugged her Earphone Jacks into the wall underneath the intercom that Raijin's voice just came out of. The speaker turned up in volume, and she yelled out, "Get back!" Her classmates leapt away from her target area on the right side of the lobby, and some of the AANTs gave chase into an area she could not target without hitting them. Six of the AANTs aimed towards her or rushed her position though. And then the sound blasted from the speaker towards them and knocked all of the AANTs back towards the open elevator doors.

Ashido put both of her hands to the sides of an AANT's head behind her classmates where Koda's bugs had swarmed them while leaving her an opening behind it. Her hands only touched for a brief second as she front-flipped over its head, but she called out, "Maximum Acidity: Ph: Negative 9!" The instant her fingers touched the skull of the AANT, they started to slip through it as smoke seared from the contact point. Her fingers dripped the Acid there too so when she let go it continued to corrode into the head of the robot and then melt down through its body and all its components as well. The smoke had a blackish-green color that when it touched some of the gnats and ticks flying around the AANT's head too close, they immediately dropped dead in the air.

"Momo!"

The invisible girl in the midst of the fighting called to her friend who tossed the taser in her left towards that empty space. Hagakure reached, and a metal hand gripped around her wrist first. "Do you really think they don't have thermal?" Raijin wondered.

Ojiro spun around and slapped his tail down on the ground behind him to soar towards the back of the AANT that aimed both wrists at his girlfriend. "Toru!"

"Close your eyes!" Hagakure flashed brightly. The red eyes of the robot looking straight at her were blinded by the flash. She ducked down and gunfire flew right over where her head just was. Her wrist twisted in the grasp of the AANT and burned as it had her skin gripped too tightly. Hagakure slid underneath the fire though before the robot had time to adjust its aim or get back its vision from the flash that affected its cameras as much as it would a human's eyesight. Ojiro's eyes closed though then opened back up and he continued his spin, slamming his tail into the side of the AANT while Sero fired lines of tape behind Ojiro that acted like spiderwebs and caught three other AANTs trying to capitalize on their strongest opponent's distraction.

Ashido curled both of her hands out in front of her waist. She had small circular openings where her index fingers curled into her thumbs. Then she curled those hands fully into fists, and she squirted more Acid at its highest acidity into the web that the AANTs had yet to free themselves from. Her Acid melted straight through their bodies and then left holes in the floor too after going completely through them and leaving them as melting mounds of scrap.

The teamwork of the U.A. students to react to each other's needs and assist each other with combos was impeccable. Raijin even frowned at the security feed in front of him that was only from one angle now. His left hand was held down at his side and his fingers rubbing together as he darted his gaze from one of his former classmates to the others. Those fingers stopped rubbing and he smiled again while speaking into his tablet he held just in front of his stomach, "Very nice. All of you seem much stronger than you were even at this most recent Sports Festival. Then again, you were fighting your fellow classmates then and not mindless drones that you can really show your brutality against. But what if inside one of my AANTs I had stuffed a child, so that your Acid would burn straight through its armor and kill the kid inside too? Would you really put that past me?"

Ashido's eyes narrowed towards a security camera but darted back towards two of the elevator shafts where the elevators were just disconnected and fell. The shafts were not empty though as what knocked those elevators down into the basement were two larger AANTs than any of the others, easily two and a half times the size of any of the previous ones. Ashido's eyes shook more as she looked at the size of these robots which could much more easily fit a human being inside of them. "Don't let him get in your head," Jirou warned with a dart of her eyes towards Ashido who she could see in her peripherals getting anxious.

"Kyoka!" Ashido yelled back at her friend who pulled her Earphone Jack from the wall and leapt away from it.

Electricity sparked out of an intercom then from the phone on the desk behind her. Sparks flew from a television screen on Ojiro's left side, but he stayed focused on the larger AANT in front of him that aimed forward an arm only with a large opening at the end and no hand. There was a green light glowing from the inside of that arm, just as one a glow came from the back of the other larger one's right arm too. "How many of these do I have?" Raijin wondered. "How long can you continue to hold off my army of robots? While every second you waste fighting them, another floor dies?"

The television that just sparked next to Ojiro turned back on. "Too bad too. The fourth floor has so many people there. It's actually one of the employee's birthdays. So sad. HAHAHA!" Raijin taunted them and laughed as the room upstairs filled with electricity and started zapping all the screaming people whose voices filled the lobby.

"DAMN IT!" Sero yelled out.

"We need to get up there now!" Koda shouted in a voice louder than most of his friends had ever heard him yell, and angrier too.

Iida's eyes darted towards the elevator shaft then over to Yaoyorozu whose eyes shifted from the television screen then to the left side of their room and some windows there. Yaoyorozu reached up to her chest while snapping her gaze to the two robots with glowing green light about to fire at her classmates preparing to dodge and counter. "Wait!" Iida called at her.

"Are you sure-"

Yaoyorozu pulled out the E.M.P. and pressed a button on the side of it. She dropped the device to the floor at her feet while all the AANTs around them collapsed. The largest ones lost their green glows and collapsed forward. Raijin's voice that just started asking her if she was okay with letting more civilians die just to save her friends, cut off as well to the annoyance of the blond who also lost security footage of the room. Yaoyorozu shook her head as her friends all spun to her in shock that she would do that. "He killed them all already," Creati told her fellow heroes around her who stared at her with huge eyes.

"The shadows from the windows on the building's east side. On each of the floors above they reached a farther angle in than they should at this time." Yaoyorozu's eyes shifted towards the same side of the building again and the shadows cast on objects inside. Those shadows were not as long as the others upstairs which she understood meant the light outside was not reaching in as far from its point higher in the sky more directly above them. The shadows were larger on the floors upstairs and she understood after the most recent floor they watched get wiped out that the angles were more different than could be explained away by just being another floor up or by there being obstacles outside. Her confidence in her conclusion was enough to convince her classmates without any further of an explanation though.

"How long?" Ashido whispered.

If she could tell from the angle of the shadows, it had to be a while, Sero thought. "Before the bomb went off even. He took control of this station to prepare," Sero responded to his ex who just stepped up behind him and stared at the back of his head with huge eyes.

"Raijin was prepared to fight against Zach. Not us," Yaoyorozu continued. "He would have killed all the hostages in that case. To cause Zach more pain, and because there's no way he planned on their fight staying in one location that Zach could fill with Death. I would suspect that all of Tokyo was meant-"

"Nice job with the shadows!" Raijin shouted while flying through the room from the elevator shaft he just dropped through and flew out of. "Of course you could figure it out!" Raijin swung both arms in front of him while he shot forward in a black and gold costume that glowed along the arms and legs. His torso illuminated just like his back that had flight gear attached. His palms and boots had similar bright blue light glowing on it as he shot into the room in his skin-tight gear that showed his muscular body more toned than it had been back during their time as heroes together.

"Lightning rods!" Yaoyorozu yelled out at the instant she saw Raijin flying out of that shaft behind some of her classmates who had turned around towards her.

Iida pulled out his own and tossed them away from himself to draw the electricity away from his armor. Raijin bounced the electricity off the lightning rods and then down into Iida's steel armor. "Ready to die again?!" Raijin yelled towards his former class rep. His eyes also darted to Sato who fumbled with his own lightning rod he was not pulling back out fast enough from where he stuffed it after Yaoyorozu made him a few on the run here.

"Behind me!" Ojiro yelled to Ashido and Hagakure. Ashido's skin-tight costume and Hagakure's bare body could not hide lightning rods as well as his loose gi.

Iida stumbled backwards, then he snapped up and shot flames out of his Engines. Iida sprinted to Kaminari's right side and twisted his body. "RECIPRO-" Iida's eyes bulged wider than Raijin's just did at how fast Iida reacted despite his armor filling with electricity. Raijin's body darted backwards and bounced to the back wall between two open elevator doors, then down to the bodies of the two larger AANTs that his hands grazed. Electricity sparked through them and turned them back online, and Yaoyorozu pressed the button on another E.M.P. she pulled out.

Raijin's eyes darted towards the tall girl who countered his revival of those AANTs without hesitation. Her next step coincided with his own, pointing a grenade launcher she whipped up in her left arm to point towards the area he was darting to next. His movements shifted just as quickly as he saw her aiming towards his next spot, but he glared darker towards the girl whose body wrapped up in an insulation cloak that emerged from her torso in a flash of light. She fired a canister from the launcher in her left hand that did not have a grenade in it but instead tiny holes all over that sprayed a silver mist through the air that redirected Raijin's electricity he fired at her to stop her next move. His attack never reached her.

Yaoyorozu threw up five lightning rods in front of her body, and two of them stuck to the ceiling pointed down while three others landed pointing upwards with metal balls at the top. The mist of conductive metal particles sifting through half of the room forced Raijin into smaller confines. Ojiro had just pulled Hagakure and Ashido behind him while getting out and setting up his own lightning rods to mess with Raijin's Quirk, but his eyes darted to his right over at Creati just as the two girls' behind him did.

Shoji, Jirou, and Koda looked to their lefts at the girl whose focused eyes glared intensely into Raijin's as his attacks towards her all snapped different directions and got caught by her traps. Half the room was static, but it was the half of the room that none of Class A were in except for Iida at this point as he landed and then sped up to stop between some of his other classmates and Raijin. Raijin stopped for a moment and looked closer than Yaoyorozu who he was just glaring at as she posed legitimate counters to his attacks. "Looks like you've made some adjustments to your costume as well," Raijin remarked.

"I would have been a fool to come after you in a suit of conductive armor," Iida remarked back. He wanted to say aloud the preparations he made against Raijin. He did not bring up the rubber lining in between the inside padding and his outer metal shell. There was no need to reveal what exactly he had done to prepare for Raijin. Sato also stomped closer on Iida's right side. Sero leaned forward and glared through his dark visor with his elbows pulling up at his sides.

All of their costumes. Raijin watched as Yaoyorozu tossed insulation cloaks to either side of her behind Iida who stood in Raijin's way as the fastest student to attack him if Raijin tried to focus on anyone else. Raijin suspected that all of Class A had done some adjustments to put insulators in their regular costumes. He imagined that woven into the fabric were insulators that would at least dampen his attacks if not negate them completely. He reached behind his back and pulled a pair of curved knives out of sheaths on the back of his costume. Raijin spun them around while pulling them in front of his body. He cracked his neck to either side while the light glinted off the steel of his weapons.

"You think you're fast enough to save them, Iida?" Raijin wondered. The static was gone from the room. None of the electronics were on anymore. No more AANTs to worry about. Raijin's Quirk was semi-negated against the students who had spent years preparing to fight him. Against his speed alone though, and sharp weapons, and a brutal killer instinct they had all witnessed in the past, none of them felt safe. They felt themselves in more danger than when facing twice as many AANTs as there were them. Just one enemy was far more terrifying when that enemy could look into their eyes and they saw a human staring back at them. They saw a friend looking at them with the raw desire the kill them.

Raijin started stepping to his left. He circled but Iida did not circle with him to instead walk more in Raijin's path between him and Yaoyorozu. Iida had seen who Raijin was targeting most of all in this room. Whether it was because Yaoyorozu had made it to the semifinals of the last Sports Festival, or because he knew that she was the one who came up with this plan against him, or because she had the best ability to counteract his Quirk, it did not matter to Iida. He stood between Raijin and Yaoyorozu who had already made a plan with them and did not give any new instructions now that her enemy could listen to.

"You really think you've planned for me?" Raijin wondered. Class A was being cautious, but some of them were wishing they had more plans for being the ones on a direct assault on Kaminari and less for countering his attacks on them. They were here to stop him and yet their plans were mainly defensive. Raijin seemed to have figured out at least that much, though they also wondered if he was trying to make them change their strategy by goading them into attacking, so they hesitated more instead of switching to an offensive attack plan. "You've defeated a few dozen AANTs. There are over a thousand in my army. You know how long it's been since the SFI? How much time I've had to prepare for this?"

"The League could easily slip into the shadows to quietly build its forces, while in reality it had Intanzo and the Radians continue to act in its public interests." Raijin paused and grinned at the reactions of some of the Class A students who heard this and stared at him in disbelief at that revelation. "How many Spiders could I create in that time? And the Scorpion, the most powerful robot so close to reaching the city. It was too large to just hide in a cubby hole underground. It marches on the city now from the west with another hundred AANTs. Too many Spiders to hide underground too. Three approach from the north. Encircling Tokyo and its surrounding cities."

"And Musutafu, draining of its heroes as they rush here, will be unprotected when The Ultimate arrives at U.A. to kill all those still on campus," Raijin continued smugly to his enemies who stared at him in even more horror at the sound of that. "The most powerful Nomu ever created. The only one stronger would be Machia, who at this very moment is killing Bakugo. The shaking you felt earlier was him falling into the city from one of our cargo jets. The most powerful of all of All For One's subordinates, released with the sole purpose of eliminating Bakugo from the equation."

"Can you really counter all of that?" Raijin wondered, walking back the other way as Iida slowly and cautiously stepped back just ahead of him. "Here you all are, wasting time fighting individual AANTs and letting me stall you, at this most important time. The start of a war. The most important minutes as time ticks by and your heroes fall one by one out there. They'll fight valiantly, they might even take down a few of my allies, but they will fall like those in Koimou did."

"You bit off more than you could chew this time-" Sero started.

"Heroes no longer have the strength to defeat us," Raijin remarked back without even looking to his right and over at Sero.

"Yes we do," Yaoyorozu countered him. "And when we stop you here, that will be the beginning of the end for your forces. Defeating you will stop the League-"

"It would!" Raijin called back in total agreement. He smiled huge and nodded while saying, "Beating me really would be the end of everything, as the League can't possibly win without me. It's not like we don't have Intanzo on our side, and Shigaraki Tomura with more power than ever, or the entirety of the Jazz and Radians. Mercenaries I have hired now that Eziano is dead and they needed someone to work for. Ten thousand strong easily without any robots or bioweapons, not that hundreds of those ten thousand haven't been biologically engineered to increase their fighting power as well! HAhahaa! You really don't get it!" Raijin taunted with his smirk rising more than ever.

"Many of these villains are stronger than the strongest heroes in Japan other than Zach. This is going to be a boring war without Zach to fight, because that's what I was planning for," Raijin put his right hand on his head and rubbed his forehead in mock disappointment. He teased the heroes he was being sarcastic at and boasting to about all he had done to prepare for today as he had wished to tell Zach about but now never could. His hand lowered down and his expression darkened with his smirk looking more dangerous and annoyed at the same time. "A war against Zach, and the rest. Because that's all you are. You fucking idiots," he taunted the teens who all glared at him in so much more anger as he brought up Zach over and over.

"Oh? Haha- Are you mad? Is that rage on your faces?" He wondered at the way they looked at him over the loss of Zach. "I doubted I could kill him until the moment he flew up with that bomb and took a 10 kiloton blast to the face." Raijin shook his head and sighed while saying, "The closest weapon I could get to a nuclear bomb, without irradiating my city afterwards…"

"It's why the villains didn't attack right away," Raijin continued while looking past Iida now and to Yaoyorozu who had a shaken expression as much as she tried to keep it firm and keep Zach from her mind. "He was who this war was for. All of you and all of the heroes and every defense Nezu prepared for us was nothing. We would have taken all of that head on, just like we are now. But it was Zach who no one wanted to fight. None of them were willing to stand behind us as long as you had him on your side. The strongest hero in the world. Somehow still standing with the same people who despised him so much. He could see the way you all looked at him, in those last moments."

"Shut up," Iida growled through his helmet at their enemy who every other Class A student in the room was glaring furiously at now. Several of them had tears in their eyes but their focus was as intense as ever as they glared him down.

"I'm serious though," Raijin continued back with a wider smile as if he was pretending that he thought they did not believe him. "I needed to make the most powerful bomb in existence and yet, I didn't want it to kill him. The bomb was supposed to destroy everything for several blocks around the Prime Minister's office, yet Zach managed to absorb most of the blast before it broke through his Death shield and made that miniature explosion in comparison to what it was supposed to be. I should have just nuked him, but those early Quirk users with the ability to render inert nuclear materia really wiped the world's supply. Nuclear energy could have been really useful, you know."

"Hahhh, I don't really know what I'm talking about," Raijin admitted. He scratched the back of his head looking to completely lower his guard. None of the Class A students fell for it, as much as some of them wanted to just attack him in that moment. Raijin pressed his right hand into the back of his head then lowered it from his hair while saying in a darker voice. "I had wished to fight Zach after destroying everything he cared about. Injuring him with the bomb but not killing him. Zach grabbing the bomb eliminated any chance of that though. An H-9 Cyclone Bomb to the face?"

"Even Zach couldn't have survived that."

He really is stalling us, Yaoyorozu thought. We need to get communications back up for the whole city. Changing up strategy to going on the attack when we planned to draw him in first will only get several of us killed. A moment of lost focus. An instant that we let our guard down. That will be death. A knife in our throats. Fatal wounds. No one is letting their guards down. No one is getting emotional over Zach. Too emotional, she countered herself while remaining focused, even though she felt the tear sliding down the right side of her face right now.

"I didn't want to irradiate my new city before even moving in," Raijin continued though he stopped moving in the center of the room between the two open elevator shafts behind him. His proximity to those potential escape routes was disheartening for teens who suddenly felt a need to rush as his tone shifted a bit to sound like this conversation might be ending soon. The hope that Yaoyorozu's E.M.P. had worked on his flight equipment was quickly countered by their realization that that could not work on him as his constant power source would just start back up his equipment in the moment that she knocked it out.

"…Intanzo will receive Tartaros to put all the heroes and the malcontents who rose against our new regime. Heroes we've already captured like Electro, Bloodhound, and Embrya are the first prisoners he's had some fun with since they were replaced at Nikko's sides. Shigaraki gets the whole of Japan, and as much of the world as he claims as his own once he's done taking this country." Raijin's voice got darker and more menacing as he narrowed his eyes and bowed his head slightly to shadow over his eyes. He smirked wider and continued to speak to them louder as he hissed, "But Tokyo is to be my prize. The King of Tokyo, standing in the epicenter of the expansion of chaos across the world, laughing as every country falls below our might with all the shitty people around the world rising to join us, and to make one final victory over Zach. A total victory where I prove to my best friend's corpse that humanity is nothing like he imagined it, and that all it will take is a nudge from me to make the world burn!"

Electricity shot out of Raijin in all directions and he shot forward at Iida in that moment. He slammed the knife in his right hand for the kink in Iida's neck where the armor was thin. Sero shot forward Tape towards where Iida just stepped backwards, the sticky side pointed in towards where Raijin was about to rush. Raijin's eyes shifted towards the ends of the lines of Tape though, and his body contorted while his feet picked up faster. He weaved himself between the lines of Tape that caused Sero's eyes to bulge as all he saw was a blur go through his attacks as if permeating through them.

Three of Shoji's arms moved into Raijin's path too while Iida changed directions and stomped back towards him. Then he used Reciproburst without saying a word, and he jumped up at the same time and shot over Raijin's head while Shoji's arms shrank back in instantly. Raijin noticed at that second that Ojiro, Hagakure, and Ashido had moved more for the front doors closer to Yaoyorozu, leaving the space on his right side empty and the space on his left occupied closest by a girl whose hatred towards him was beyond any of her classmates. Jirou slammed her hands down into the floor while her Earphone Jacks plugged into the white devices on the backs of her hands. "Sound Amplification: Scream Amplifier!"

Instead of using her own heartbeat and those of her friends around her, Jirou used the sounds she picked up from the violence outside. The gunfire and especially the explosions became so loud every time she plugged in her Earphone Jacks, but it was the screaming that she focused on instead. And she added her own as she yelled out towards him, "AHHHHH!" The ground under her hands and past Kaminari all the way to the next wall broke apart. The ground came apart underneath him near the middle of the room that was full of too many lightning rods for him to focus his Quirk towards her easily. Those targets we worked on together and you told me so much about weren't useless. You explained why you needed them in detail to me. It was smarter than I thought you were, at the time.

Jirou started falling into the ground as well as the floor collapsed into the basement. Her classmates attacked and Yaoyorozu popped out countless E.M.P.'s that were already in-use as they emerged from her chest to continuously jam up his equipment if he tried flying back up. Jirou glared at Raijin the whole time they fell, You showed us that you didn't really need them when you betrayed us, but the science still stood to reason. Those targets were just like the lightning rods we're using to shift around your attacks and make it harder for you to hit us. They could be made stronger than regular lightning rods though. Pull your Electricity exactly where you want it to go. But you're cocky. You don't even have them equipped on your costume. You knew that against Zach it wouldn't matter because he wouldn't waste the time focusing on negating your attacks. He would just tank them straight on, and kill you.

Swarms of insects flew at Kaminari as he fell. Koda winced as he watched the static electricity fill the air around Raijin's falling body towards the basement. His head was risen and his eyes locked on Yaoyorozu's as she popped out E.M.P. after E.M.P. and dropped them into the hole in front of her that several of her classmates just leapt down into with insulator cloaks on their backs. He planted his feet on a part of the floor that was cracking but still solid enough that he could look ominous as he fell with grace and composure. "You're wrong, Raijin," Yaoyorozu said down to their enemy whose eyes she glared back into. She sounded as confident as could be as she glared at an enemy who could not focus solely on her when Iida was soaring down with his body spinning around, and Shoji's arms extending, Sato popping sugar cubes in his mouth, and Ashido aiming at his falling platform with more Acid while Sero swung her down off the ledge he still stood on himself. Ojiro was flipping and he slammed his tail into a falling piece of first floor to send it flying down towards Raijin too, while Mineta aimed Pop Offs directly behind Raijin just to cut off one of his points of escape from all the simultaneous attacks. "Zach's always been right." Yaoyorozu continued.

"Zach didn't even hate you," Mineta called down at his old friend who he hated so much at this moment. "He knew that there was too much hate already! But he also knew that the world was kind!"

"If all it took was a little push," Jirou growled from where she fell on Raijin's left. "Then we would have lost him to your side a long time ago." I lost faith that the world was good because I lost faith in him. He showed me how wrong I was! He showed me that the world really is a beautiful place again! I won't let you take that away from me this time!

Raijin jumped forward to dodge falling rocks and Acid and Pop Offs. He shot forward through the basement that got more illuminated despite all the lights being cut off by the small E.M.P.'s. The natural light above shone down into a floor that Raijin darted back through towards a freight elevator and street access steps. He did not leave Heroally but just turned and faced the more illuminated half of the basement where half of his old classmates were falling into. "Do you really think those ideals will last in a world where villains take over?" He asked them.

Raijin tilted his head back in the darkness and glared with a much larger smirk on his face at their naivety. "A world where we torment people with those kind of ideals until the last who believe in them are dead or imprisoned?"

"That world will never happen, because this world is a beautiful place," Yaoyorozu said as she jumped down to the floor in front of him. On landing, her right palm pressed down on part of the first floor that kept her elevated higher than Raijin on the cement ground below and in front of her. She stood back up while her classmates landed at her sides and Iida sprinted up to stop a few feet in front of her. Ojiro and Sato slammed metal spikes into the ground on Yaoyorozu's right in different places, while Shoji and Sero slammed down lightning rods on her other side. They all wore the same green and blue insulation cloaks of a similar color pattern to the costume of a friend of theirs who was led out of Karebo not long ago in the custody of heroes. Yaoyorozu talked down to him, "Your future is not possible, Raijin. Even without Zach, we will find a way to stop you. He was not so foolish as to leave the world in danger if he were to die."

Kaminari's eyes narrowed and his smirk did lower at the sound of that. "Zach knew the failure of the one-pillar system well," Creati remarked to an enemy who she knew understood Zach well enough that he would not just ignore her. "He knew that having people rely on one person was not a smart move. He did everything he could to ensure that this world was stronger than ever before. You may have made all those preparations for him, but everything he ever did was in preparation for you. Long before you started making any of your plans for him. He prepared for this. For a world without him. Without its greatest hero." Yaoyorozu tilted her own head back and glared down more towards their enemy whose whole body pulsed with electricity showing the angered look on his face in those shadows under a more sturdy portion of the floor.

"Zach did not run when he knew that bomb was coming because he believed in those who he would leave behind," Yaoyorozu said to her enemy in confidence that motivated her classmates around her believing every word out of her mouth. "He believed that we would not let him down. That we would protect the world he loved. The beautiful world that he always believed in! A world that he made into a reality and that I will not allow you take away!"

Raijin's body pulsed with lightning that filled the basement and reminded his enemies of the fear they felt earlier as his head lifted and the golden glow of his irises locked onto Yaoyorozu's gray ones. His mouth rose into a smirk again then opened, "We will see about that."

---

"Enough running!" Endeavor yelled down the road in western Tokyo. They were still on a main street, but the roads breaking off in either direction were starting to go diagonally away from them and become more narrow too. The buildings were not as tall anymore now that they were out in Nerima in the far west of Tokyo. The office buildings were still ten stories or more, but several roads breaking off of the main one were more residential and small commercial districts that consisted of clothing stores and ramen shops. There was an elementary school to Endeavor's left as he shot by a street with flames billowing out his back and keeping him right on Intanzo's tail.

"Afraid you won't be able to keep up much longer?" Intanzo called back.

Fewer enemies all the way out here. Did they expect the Decay to reach this far? Was Shigaraki planning on targeting certain districts, or did Intanzo tell his men to stay away from where he's bringing me? Endeavor's enraged look as he chased down Intanzo was masking a calmer demeanor from the top hero in Japan who did not take this enemy lightly. Floodgate was an old colleague of his who had fought many villains alongside him. Her death was a shock to him because of the power he knew she had, and he kept her on the back on his mind as he chased down this enemy who suddenly darted to the right as he bounded off another office building's window that bent inwards to his touch then sprung him away from it.

Angle! Endeavor's right hand pulled back and a fireball emerged over it that his hand grasped into. The fireball crushed into a flaming bolt of bright orange that he launched forward towards Intanzo's throat. Intanzo's body spun around in midair and turned horizontally, his movements breaking laws of physics as he had no force or positioning to be able to suddenly spiral himself around like that to be able to just grin up at the flaming bolt that flew over his face.

Intanzo kept going towards the next building while the flaming lightning bolt that missed him soared over the top of a smaller building on the other side of the street that Endeavor had seen Intanzo about to pass. Intanzo's right hand gripped into a handhold that formed on the solid wall of an office building between two windows that he just landed on. His feet dipped into the wall too while his right hand curled through the siding and gripped onto a metal pipe inside. He yanked out the metal pipe. The entire wall around that pipe ripped outwards and every window on the floor and the three above and below all shattered as Endeavor came around the same turn that Intanzo just passed.

Intanzo swung his free hand towards Endeavor, and the entire wall of that office building that was just ripped off all flew towards him. Intanzo swung around the pipe in his right while leaping the other direction as his storm of debris. The pipe closed in on itself then sharpened on the right edge that Intanzo slashed out to his side while flying back through the air and arcing towards the street below.

Too much to melt, Endeavor pushed his right hand up and forced out enough flames to angle his feet upwards. Just as the first shards of glass were reaching him, he fired out the jets of flames from his feet that sent him down to the street and slamming into it so hard that he made a crater in the pavement. Endeavor punched his right hand forward on landing and sent a fireball through the car that was just thrown at him at a hundred and twenty miles per hour. He jumped up over the flaming debris rolling down the street towards him, only for that flaming rubble to yank backwards and hit him in the back. He gained speed towards Intanzo, but the vehicle did not have as much speed when it was suddenly yanked back as when it had first been flying at him. The rest of the debris from the broken office wall that Endeavor had dodged under did have enough time to speed up though towards the spot that Intanzo just knocked Endeavor to.

Endeavor's hands gripped into pavement that melted under his hands. The pavement to the sides of those handholds started to bend upwards. Waves of street curved up on either side of Endeavor, but he swung both arms backwards while pulsing flames out of his feet and barely dodging the storm of rubble that just slammed down where he had been. The flames coming out of his back condensed so much brighter. His speed shot him through the barrels of the pavements waves and to Intanzo's right side where that man with spiky black hair was backpedaling at sixty miles per hour. Endeavor swung his right fist in towards Intanzo's left side, and Intanzo bent his left arm up to block while at the same time flicking his right hand at Endeavor's feet.

The pavement under Endeavor's feet started to slide farther forward and bunch up as if it was a shirt getting wrinkled. Endeavor's feet only just touched down on that ground to give him a solid footing before he punched. He did that in order to get enough force behind his punch to take down Intanzo quickly, because the villain's way of fighting was too destructive and people were screaming all around them. They screamed inside of windows and walls that were ripped apart behind Endeavor and back down that road. Cowering on the first floors of shops that had locked their doors after getting everyone to evacuate inside. They were all around him and he could hear their screams in his ears as he slammed his right fist into Intanzo's left arm. The force from the punch had been drastically lowered… but Endeavor was intending on a knock-out blow. Even with the force decreased like that, he still launched Intanzo off the street and into the corner of a building between its roof and the wall.

That part of the building moved aside as Intanzo was supposed to be hitting it. The man whose arm was burnt and bruised from that blow swung it out to the side and shook out his left wrist. He wiggled all his fingers while glaring with glowing dark green eyes through the hole that had split in the store's roof thanks to his Quirk he reacted with ever so quickly. All of the tiles and metal piping and wires, all of the sheetrock and siding, it all just broke apart and pushed out of the way as he desired it to. Endeavor glared up into Intanzo's eyes through the flames surrounding his own. Now that I see it up close, Matter Control is everything I've dreaded it to be and more.

Intanzo's Quirk, Matter Control, had only been speculated about in hero schools and by the pro heroes of the nation and world. No one wanted to suggest that such a powerful Quirk existed and was in the hands of a villain, especially when so little was known about any drawbacks or weaknesses to it. Intanzo's perfect record of victory and escape after his appearances meant that there was little heroes could speculate about how powerful his Quirk was. No hero had even pushed him far enough that they could suggest a limit to his Matter Control. Even at this moment after Endeavor landed a heavy blow on him, he glared cautiously and in dread towards that villain who stayed floating up there in the sky after falling for only a couple of seconds. If his Quirk worked on organic matter, it would all be over. That is the one thing we can hypothesize based on interactions with him. He is not just playing around either. There would be no need for bombs or Decay if he could rip everyone apart with only a glance.

Does it work on his clothing? If it does, then why not my own? Endeavor continued to speculate as fast as his thoughts could keep up with the fight that needed to continue here before Intanzo decided to suddenly use his Quirk to collapse the roofs of buildings around him. Endeavor slammed his hands down and pillars of flames came out of them as he sent himself flying up to meet his enemy. The way he turns in midair makes two viable options. His Quirk can work on organic matter as long as it's his own body, or he can use it on clothing as well… And a third, that he has enough control that even the atoms in the air are under his control. However, if he's condensing the air enough to stand on it then he should be able to remove the air from around me and that would be enough to suffocate me and put out my flames. If it was clothing, he would use it on my costume. Therefore the most likely must be that his own body can be controlled by his Matter Control.

Then why not clothing? Is it because it is touching organic matter directly? My skin touches the clothes on my back. If he cannot control his own body, perhaps he has space between the initial layer of his costume and shoes and the outer layers that he is moving. Assuming he cannot control my clothes, the reason has to be my proximity to them. Just as some Quirks alter the properties of the clothes of the Quirk users in order to be able to withstand their abilities, his seems to be the opposite where it acts as a weakness rather than a benefit. The floor under my feet earlier moved, however was it moving before my feet skid onto it? When I gripped the street under my hands! He moved the pavement on my sides in waves to curl over me, rather than break apart my handholds that could have made me too slow to dodge all that rubble had he done so…

"As expected of the Number 1," Intanzo remarked as he watched Endeavor fly up towards him.

He shot backwards himself and farther towards the west. Endeavor got up higher but slowed down himself as he stared at Intanzo with growing eyes that darted to either side of the leader of the Radians. "Even in a brief encounter you are a quick learner. I'd like you to know though, that these AANTs behind me are impervious to flames. They can withstand anything you hit them with, Endeavor." Intanzo made these claims and Endeavor did not know if it was true or not, but from what he had seen back at Karebo they were definitely able to handle much of his normal attacks.

Did they really plan this far ahead? Endeavor wondered. The dread he felt got deeper at the thought of just how many traps were laid in preparation for this event. The bomb should have killed me. Shigaraki's Decay could have killed me. Yet they still had traps prepared in case it didn't. Endeavor looked beyond Intanzo and out through the residential area of Nerima. On the outside of the city, as if they had created a perimeter around the entire district, were over a hundred AANTs. Many of them were facing outwards and fighting heroes outside of Tokyo who were trying to rush in and help the people of the city behind Endeavor who were on their own and who those heroes could not get in contact with. That line was smaller though than the line of AANTs that flew forwards behind Intanzo now and were all looking to target Endeavor.

Behind those AANTs and the ones on the outer perimeter too, Endeavor watched as many of the heroes to the west started yelling and turning around. They turned and sprinted back the way they came away from the city, though some of the AANTs near them chased them down to stop them from heading towards their new target that Endeavor's eyes started shifting to past Intanzo's left side. Intanzo smirked and turned his own head to the left while Endeavor stayed hovering in place with the flames coming out below him. "There she is," Intanzo remarked with a chuckle as he spotted it too.

Slower than the flying AANTs that could go straight to the city from the hiding spot they had emerged from along with this robot, it was only just arriving. A little later than its smaller counterparts, but far, far more deadly than all of them combined, marched forward a six-legged monster standing hundreds of feet tall. "We call it, The Scorpion, Endeavor." Intanzo's head turned back forward towards the top hero in the nation who had never seen anything like that in his life. "You'd be amazed by the firepower it possesses. The main cannon could level all of Nerima on its own."

That was no boast, Endeavor thought. That was a promise! Endeavor knew why there were no villains around him. He understood why this entire portion of Tokyo was empty, as the League of Villains prepared to give an example of what this most powerful technological weapon could do. It stomped forward still a few miles from the city, but Endeavor could see the front left leg lift, then the center left, and the front right and back right. It was slow, and clunky in its movements, and yet it had a sleek outer black armor to it. It had two large claws sticking out of the front on either side of a cannon that was still pulled inside its body and only partially stuck out pointed their way.

Intanzo rose his arms up at his sides from his positioning twenty meters ahead of Endeavor in the air over a five-story apartment complex. Satellite disks and air conditioning vents on the roofs of buildings around them ripped from their bolts. Roof access doors pulled off their hinges then the casings for the stairwells ripped apart as well. Balconies bent and the railings of them flung off and up in the air behind Endeavor and on his right and left sides. A dozen cars lifted up over the other edge of the building behind Intanzo and then rose over his head as well. In the distance behind this villain and the cars swirling around behind his back, Endeavor watched as the Scorpion's trajectory changed so it was now walking straight towards him. A fleet of AANTs aimed his way and only his way. "This city is ours, Endeavor. You really think you can stop all of this on your own?"

"The longer you all struggle and resist, the more senseless loss of life becomes necessary," Intanzo threatened. "Should you surrender, Nerima could be spared. Your resistance is futile, you must understand," Intanzo pleaded. He was smirking as he said it though. He knew what Endeavor's answer would be and his words sounded empty because of that knowledge. "I would throw you into Tartaros and get back our comrades who you so unfairly placed down there. If the greatest prison in Japan held its greatest hero, well, that would give legitimacy to our reign, wouldn't it?"

"You're insane," Endeavor growled. His head stayed on a swivel and he kept a full rotational view of everything going on around him. "You seriously think…" He does. Endeavor's eyes locked back on Intanzo's glowing green ones. "Tokyo will not fall to your ilk so easily-"

"Then again!" Intanzo called out. He continued as if ignoring all that Endeavor was saying, and his head leaned forward with his eyes growing in size. "You aren't really Japan's greatest hero, are you? No, no no. Hearing what you did to poor Dabi. Your own son?" Intanzo wondered in feigned disbelief at the man whose head pulled back and whose eyes shook as he stared back at this villain. Intanzo chuckled darkly under his breath. "You're no hero at all, are you, Todoroki Enji? You and I, are very much alike. You and all villains, really. Nothing separates us except for a thin line that you call justice and we call oppression. A thin line we each stand so close to. One that will break today. Eliminating that one thin line that holds this society together. That's Shigaraki's goal. That's all it is. He knows that it's that fragile at this point, that all it will take is one day to rip down the meaning of morality that lingers in your justice."

"Only once we change what it means to be right, can we rule the world."

---

Todoroki Shoto stared across the street at the roof opposite the one he stood on. The tallest buildings on the road were directly across from each other and towered over central Tokyo. Other skyscrapers reached high up too, and there was even some fighting on those lower roofs as well. Some AANTs and Intel-ANTs fought in the sky below along with flying heroes and villains who were all lower than this highest level. The villains knew that they could use the risk of collateral damage and abuse the potential for taking hostages, so they stayed lower than the two men staring across the gap high above the street. That street was full of burnt-out vehicles and battling heroes. Few noticed the ones at the very top of the city who faced one another with flames flickering behind them.

"Is that really you…" Todoroki started but did not finish the question. The way he started made Dabi's expression darken and his lips curl down at the corners that had been flat when Shoto first saw him. Dabi had been standing there waiting for him, having seen the approaching fire and ice of his younger brother's Quirk from a distance. The blue flames that had raged behind Dabi as a signal for the younger to come up there were simmering now behind him just as the flames Shoto used to get up there were going out behind him too.

"He told you, did he?" Dabi muttered. His head turned and he glanced towards the northwest from his position. They were too far to see any sign of Endeavor now though. I was surprised, Dabi's eyes shifted down from the distance and looked to the floor on his left side instead. There were small ledges in front of both Todoroki and his older brother who had considered standing on that ledge itself but decided against it. Shoto did not climb up on his own after when he approached from the opposite side of the roof he stood on now. He had gone from full sprint into a slower jog then a walking finish to the spot he stood in now just a hundred feet away. I knew you hadn't told him yet, back in Enudora. You didn't tell that secret I told you in all that time back with them. It's still not public knowledge but I'd bet Shoto told Endeavor, didn't you?

Dabi's eyes rose up and glared darker at his younger brother who was staring back at him with darker eyes as well even after confirming what Zach had told him based on Dabi's reaction. All the fun in today is gone. Dabi's expression got angrier as he glared towards Shoto. You'll still suffer, but I won't get to see that look on your face. It wouldn't be worth it… I killed his family, and he never told you. He kept my secret? Why? To protect Endeavor, who he kept trying to convince me had changed? Why?! Why did he have to write that fucking report after what I did to him? I proved him wrong. I proved- Dabi imagined an explosion he had watched live. His right hand lifted and he rubbed the side of his head with it in a way confusing his younger brother who had so much to say to him but instead was just balling his fists at his sides now.

Dad made it so the two of us never really knew one another, Dabi glared towards Shoto and wanted so much to feel the hatred he once did swell inside him now. His expression could not fake those feelings though. His missing hatred made it harder to smile and laugh at his younger brother who his father had bred and raised to be the most powerful. You were what I could never be. What I pushed myself so hard to be for him, only to be tossed aside! And, and I hate him for it. I hated you! "Why would you hate Todor- why, would you hate Shoto?"

"I get it! I get that what Endeavor did to you… I know- I do! Dabi! But the people you're hurting, what did they do to deserve it? Why does Shoto have to be a part of your revenge? He's my friend, and he's your brother! He suffered to Endeavor too. I don't know him all that well… I'm, closer to you than I ever was to him. But I can tell just by looking at him, by looking at the way he looked at Endeavor, he knows it too! He's not your enemy. He's your brother. Hurting him would hurt Endeavor, but, but wouldn't it hurt you too? To hurt your own brother like that?"

"STOP THAT! Stop, trying to make it quicker. Or less painful- what the fuck?!" Why am I thinking of that day now? "You- stop acting like- like you care if it's any quicker!" Why can't I get him out of my head? "I saved you then, because you had saved my life! Because, you gave me a second chance and vouched for me to give me a place- and, and because you were the one person in the League of Villains who I could talk to! Who, I actually felt like was my friend. I- I wanted to save you, because, because you were like a brother to me!" Dabi's expression softened for a second as he stared back at his younger brother whose mouth just opened wide to yell towards him. He was right. It did hurt, hurting my own "brother" like that. You warned me so long before that day that I had almost forgotten. I ignored you then. Thought you were just naive, and annoying-

But it did hurt. It hurt when we came to kill you. It hurt just now watching you die. I considered you more of a brother than Shoto though. Maybe even, Natsuo. I can barely remember his face anymore. Dabi's softened expression darkened again and his hands opened up at his sides. Both hands burst into blue flames as he glared down Shoto. All I remember is Endeavor's face. Dabi bit down then parted his lips and curled them up at the corners. Blood trickled out of the purple scars on the right and left sides of his face, just under his eyes. And the flames. The fire. The heat that burned me! "Shoto," Touya called out to the boy who grit his teeth harder before yelling back at him.

"Touya!" Shoto yelled out. Zach told me why! He told me everything you told him, but I didn't want to believe it! "You- Do you really want this?! You…" He's killed heroes. He's killed innocent people! Dabi's an executive of the League of Villains who are destroying this city right now. Who killed Aizawa sensei! And Zach! "You killed Zach?!" Todoroki yelled towards his older brother, tears forming in both of his eyes that were full of rage at his last thought. "He loved you! Even, even when he told me who you were and- he still cared!"

Touya's teeth grit and he bared them towards his younger brother who brought Zach up right now. "Reaper betrayed us. He was just an ally-"

"He thought of you as a brother!" Shoto yelled at him. He swung his left arm out to the side, "And he desperately wanted to save you! Even after- even after you slaughtered his family! He didn't hate you! And you still killed him?! Whatever happened to you, you can't excuse that. You can't ever…" Why am I talking to him? Anger swelled inside Shoto. Hatred that Dabi himself was struggling to find for his younger brother burst inside Shoto as he glared at the older man who stared back with widening eyes at that rage on Shoto's face.

"And I thought of him as a brother too," Todoroki Shoto whispered under his breath. Steam came off his right side and was thickest in the middle of his body where his other half was heating up so much more. "We may be blood, but you killed my real brother." Zach had no family. We were what he chose! He came back to be with us, because he needed us! And I just stood there and watched him die!

"I, I don't have a family," Dabi was not the only one hearing Zach's voice in his head. Todoroki Shoto heard him in his room the night of Kaminari's betrayal. Sato could not even listen to the whole thing, leaving just him, Midoriya, and Sero out in the hallway to hear as Zach sobbed to Yaoyorozu. "He was the family I chose, when I had NOTHING! I trusted him! And he used me. Lied to me! Betrayed me! All for what?! TO WIN?!" No one ever stayed by his side. Always leaving him alone. "I loved him. He was, my best friend… And he killed my family."

"You're not alone," Shoto glared at Dabi through the steam. He remembered Yaoyorozu's voice in the room that night with Zach. His expression hardened and his fists clenched so hard his nails were digging into his palms. He wasn't alone. "You still have people who care- who love you. You still have a family." She was right. We were there for him… I wish, I had been there for him. Like they all were. Like he needed me to be! I doubted him, and I questioned his intentions! And I- I don't care that you kept Touya from me! I don't care anymore. I just wish you were still here.

"…We're our own brothers' keepers. But, but- I don't know if I'll be able to do it now, so you have to stop him Todoroki." No more words were spoken between the estranged brothers. Shoto swung his right arm forward and created a bridge between buildings while leaping up in the air at the same time. "Stop Touya." I will, Zach. I promise you that! "I'm sorry I didn't say anything, but Endeavor's such a great hero, I couldn't stain his name by revealing the secret I knew." You've taught me that sometimes secrets are better off kept. You kept it from me because you cared more about the world! Because you knew it would help people more if you kept quiet about it! I understand that now. I understood you and why you did all of it.

"Dabi!" Todoroki yelled out the villain's name rather than his real one that they both knew Shoto knew. "I am going to stop you here! Before you can do any more harm to this world."

Impersonal. Dabi rose up his flaming blue fists at his sides. He pointed his right forward towards where Shoto rushed him from. "Fine," Dabi said. His flat expression darkened more but at the same time calmed as he did not start shouting at Shoto all the reasons he had had for hating him and his father. His right fist opened into a palm that ignited 100 times brighter and made all eyes dart up above the top of the buildings. Those blue flames melted through the side of the ice bridge closer to him and caused Shoto to leap into the air while swinging his left arm forward himself. Time to die, Todoroki Shoto.

Red flames fired from Todoroki's hand into the blue flames that fired back at him. The collision of the flaming blasts in midair was spectacular and pulsed purple light that was brighter red on one side and brighter blue on the other. The heat could be felt down on the road far below where the fighting stopped and villains and heroes alike looked up towards the fiery explosion above that sent shockwaves down into them. Windows all over the buildings shattered and the roof's edge in front of Dabi melted from the back of the blue explosion just off the roof's edge. The melted bridge rained down on people below who were dodging away from glass but would not need to dodge any ice.

Shoto pushed his left hand harder forward but his momentum through the air had stopped and reversed since he had no footholds and there was a jet of flames coming out of his arm. The lack of structure below him made it harder to push forward than Dabi whose free hand pointed behind him and counterbalanced his frontal attack with flames pushing out behind him too now. Dabi grinned as he pushed his right out farther in front of him and made the blue flames even brighter and grow thicker as well on the sides to start curving around the red flames on Shoto's side. "Let's see who's stronger, Shoto!"

"Who cares?!" Shoto yelled through the flames. His eyes darted both ways and then he forced out a thinner jet of flames from his left hand and shot backwards to avoid the blue fire as it wrapped in around his attack towards him. Todoroki flipped himself around in the air and swung his right arm down as he was spinning out of it. A wave of ice connected three buildings on the side of the road he had started on. Under his right foot formed a board of ice that was smooth on bottom and sharp in the front of it. His left foot planted down on the back and he angled himself into the curve of his still-forming wave that swung back more towards the middle of the road.

Shoto rode the wave down and pointed his left hand out again towards where he saw Dabi leaping from the tallest skyscraper to one that was several stories lower but not too far that it would hurt him to drop to. There was a broad empty space behind Dabi now that Shoto did not have before. His right hand pushed down to his side and the board stopped moving instantly to merge with the ice that Todoroki filled up behind him to make it easier to fire out flames this time without getting thrown anywhere. He aimed his left hand towards Dabi's position. His glare narrowed so harshly at the black-haired man who his flaming left hand aimed at.

He had the angle. Dabi came out from behind the first explosion of fire and his eyes widened as he saw Shoto already stopping his slide towards the next position that Dabi was about to go attack himself. Shoto attacked first and while he was in midair so he had no easy means of avoiding this blast of fire. The way Shoto built up a huge ice wall behind him though and planted his feet into strong footholds made it appear as if this next one would be so much larger too. Shoto's eyes shifted up though from Dabi's eyes that he just locked with. He looked into his older brother's black hair that had lost some of the color in it, leaving a white patch which showed that the black color was dyed. The purple scar tissue covering Dabi's face and neck, and all along his arms that stuck out of his sleeves, made Shoto hesitate. The fire. Can he not handle his own flames-

Shoto turned his palm and he fired out a beam of hot fire that Dabi's body curled away from. Dabi pulled his body away in midair and just smirked as he turned his head back towards Shoto while he was landing. "Too slow, and too weak," Dabi remarked at his younger brother who cursed himself in his head over that moment of hesitation that cost him such a great opportunity. Shoto glared even angrier though as his hands were shaking while he stared down Dabi from a slightly larger building. They were at eye-level though since Shoto was frozen to the wall near the top floor of his while Dabi was standing just on the ledge of the roof across from him. "You really think you can pull your punches? Learn some respect for your older brother, Shoto."

"I have no respect for you," Shoto growled back. He swung his right hand in front of him and created three huge waves of ice that shot across the gap and then curved down at Dabi on his left, right, and directly above him. The one above him was aimed partially behind Dabi too in an attempt to force him forwards and back over the street. Dabi was quicker though and pointed one hand above him to blow apart the ice pillar just as it was passing over him. Not enough of it was past yet that the amount that was could not take those flames and broke apart. Dabi jumped backwards and up in the air, his left hand already aimed in front of him at the back of the ice pillar that continued shooting forward through blue flames and shards of ice. Shoto was riding on the back of the wave to Dabi's right though, the left one that Shoto created to ride across the street on after blocking himself from his brother's view.

Dabi swung his left arm across the front of his body towards that pillar on his right that just smashed down on the roof he had been on and froze the entire thing. Huge spikes of ice shot up from the roof and one largest one rose up between Shoto who still had his right hand planted on the ground and could quicker use his ice than reposition and lift his left hand to fight fire with fire again. The largest spike of ice rose up and gave the building an extra fifteen stories so it was now the tallest thing on the block. Blue flames pushed around either side of it and flew by both of Shoto's sides. SO HOT! Shoto had been concerned about his own fire, but his eyes bulged at the feeling of those blue flames licking at his arms. The left side of his body smoked and reignited, while he continued to make more ice inside of his largest pillar and tried to keep it at its same size even against the onslaught of hotter flames pushing against it.

"Is this why you overheated?!" Shoto yelled out through the flames and ice blocking the brothers. "You overused your Quirk?! Overexerting yourself with a fire Quirk, would obviously-"

"HE overused it!" Dabi roared out. His eyes darted to the right and he turned his left hand and pushed the flames away from the ice pillar and instead into the shadow slipping through only the weak edge of the explosion of blue fire. The entire blast he was firing out of his arm hit the silhouette and burned through it in a second. The fire erupted high into the air and in an angle past the top of the building across the street just barely above it. Dabi was panting and he grit his teeth that those words had actually gotten him to snap back at him. Then his eyes darted back to the left and towards a cracking ice pillar that a figure was sprinting out behind and straight towards him.

A chunk of ice! Touya thought while backing up a step and starting to bend his knees. He understood what his brother could have used to make it look like he was jumping the other direction in order to redirect his own flames. Dabi's right foot stepped back, but he planted it on the floor and stopped bending his knees into a crouch to leap from. Shoto was quick. He was staying low and darted towards Dabi with his right hand swinging up near the ground and his left already steaming as he prepared a secondary attack in case Dabi somehow escaped the huge wave of ice he was about to encase him in. Dabi had seen enough Sports Festivals to know that jumping up in this position would not save him from being caught in the ice, but he stepped back as if that was the move he was making and even bent his legs as if it was happening to draw in Shoto another few steps.

Dabi's entire body burst into hot blue flames that raged above him and to both sides. It burst out of his back but mainly out of his front, with Dabi in the middle of it all. The ice that Shoto swung in front of himself as a protective shield was melted through almost instantaneously. Shoto leapt backwards in that brief instant he did have though. His skin was reddened which was hard to tell because of the bright blue tint on it as Shoto stared with huge eyes into the flames in front of him. "Overexerting myself? In a fire that even Endeavor thought it was impossible for me to survive in. One that he abandoned me inside. He tossed me aside, because there was no chance I could have survived that accident!" Dabi called it out sarcastically to Shoto's shock. "I survived a fire like that. You think?!" Dabi's flames grew higher and he leaned his head forward with his lips curled high in the corners and an enraged look over his madly smiling face. "That you have firepower?! I- I was the one who he MADE for this! You can't freeze me. I'll melt myself out."

Dabi stomped forward and Shoto took another step back as the entire roof was covering in flames due to their fight on it. We need to get off the roof!

"You can't beat my flames either with your pathetic ones! You're inferior to me. A new model with a fancy new feature, and that's it. You're the perfect son that he always wanted to create. And he got his wish. He got what he wanted. So I'm going to take that from him. Take you from him. Take EVERYTHING from him! Just like he took from me," Dabi pointed both of his hands in front of him and straight at Shoto.

Todoroki Shoto leapt backwards and off the building. He pointed his left palm up and fired a jet of flames above him to send himself out of the air and from Dabi's sight. He won't waste all those flames on a miss. No matter how strong he is… and he is so strong. It doesn't matter! All Quirks have downsides. His body can handle a lot now, but he will overheat if he stays burning like that for too long, and he doesn't have unlimited flames. I'll draw him away and force him to either decrease the supply or- Shoto's eyes shifted to his left and he stared at that huge bright blue light flying off the building behind him.

"You can't run!" Dabi yelled. He swung his right arm in front of him and a huge whip of flames two stories tall swung down at Shoto who swung his own right arm to his side while aiming his left below him. A wave of ice covered the wall of the building where Dabi's flames would hit a second later after passing him. The fire he shot out below him rose him higher in the air and flipping towards a higher point on the same wall. Dabi was across the street and got pushed back by the whip he just slashed ahead of him. It pushed him back into the wall at his back that did not start melting even if the people inside screamed. Most of the flames around his body had dimmed and gone away as he used them for that huge attack. Ice and glass broke below Shoto who landed diagonally into the wall of the building across from Dabi and slightly farther down the road where Shoto had been heading.

Shoto's left foot burned through the wall and his right foot froze a foothold around it to keep him from falling. Both of Dabi's glowing blue feet melted through the wall he started running on. Dabi fired blue flames out of his back though while he was sprinting upwards along his wall and after Shoto. He lifted his right hand and a blue fireball raged to life on it that he threw while jumping off the melted footholds that made him annoyed to use. Shoto held no such apprehension towards the movements that both boys had seen their father use before and mimicked right there as one ran and the other gave chase.

Shoto stopped short and leapt back towards Dabi who aimed a little behind him. He slammed his left palm forward and fired a thinner beam of red flames through the blue fireball that would hit the building behind him if he just dodged. The fireball blew apart still high above the road, but Shoto had to yank his left hand up as the fire he used to stop that fireball was too strong. I need a wider area! It was something he always had to be so cautious about. His Quirk's strength was too much that even in wide open arenas he still had a problem keeping his fights from dragging in spectators and causing a danger for people around him. In crowded city streets where the population density was more dense than anywhere else in Japan, it was his absolute worst place to start a fire-fight with Dabi. If I can get us to a park-

Shoto was falling down towards the street below after swinging his left arm up and pointing his flames higher in the sky so they only nicked the edge of the roof above Dabi. Pushing his arm up like that also dropped him towards the ground faster and he was prepping his right arm to make a landing wave of ice for himself. Dabi was dropping too after punching that fireball forward then dodging the thin jet of flames his brother managed to rip apart his attack with. He had blue flames ignited under his feet though that slowed his descent more than Shoto who had sped his own up. Touya glared down towards Shoto, then he turned around and went back the other direction from where they came. What am I doing? Dabi wondered to himself with a chuckle and a menacing look. He glanced through the windows on his right side at people who pulled far away from him. Didn't he come to me? I don't need to chase him. He'll do what I want him to-

Dabi's feet swung out in front of him and the blue flames pushed into the wall of ice that just rose up from building to building. It completely blocked the road and rose higher than any of the skyscrapers around him. Dabi's blue flames melted the ice that tried jumping from the wall and grabbing him, and it also pushed him away and spun him around to glare back towards Shoto. Shoto was already standing straight up though with only his right foot stomped forward. That foot had a line of ice connecting from where he stood to a hundred and thirty feet away and the eight meter thick wall rising hundreds of feet into the sky. His left hand was aimed forward above his right leg on a diagonal angle.

In Dabi's peripheral vision, he could see that giant ice wall behind him. He had tried to take back the pace in a second and keep the fight in this most populace area, but Shoto glared up towards him in understanding of that tactic. Right now then, Shoto thought. The understanding that he could not get Dabi to a park in order to fight an elongated battle against his brother settled in quickly for the younger Todoroki. If he could not stop him in a long battle, he needed to take him down in a moment like the one he had let slip him by before. Dabi had thought Shoto would get more flustered and start shouting at him again or something when he changed directions, not just suddenly block his path with a wall larger than Dabi had ever seen him create before. It was thick too, and it stretched from building to building covering over a one hundred foot wide gap. Even Dabi had to admit that it was something else.

The speed at which Shoto created that thick of a wall of ice was also more than the eighteen year old's body was prepared for. Snap Freeze. I'm so, cold. Todoroki breathed out a visible breath of air while his entire body covered in steam. The ice in front of his right foot and all around his right leg was not melted yet even with his left arm just over that leg already enflamed. His temperature management was far better than ever before. But this constant use of both fire and ice was messing with his equilibrium. Shoto was far too cold to be heated up instantly like that without feeling the early stages of shock. It was like taking him out of the snow and dropping him in a tub of hot water. His skin stung but he forced out more firepower into his left arm and then yelled out in both pain and fury up towards Touya, "Flash-Fire Stream!"

The shockwave from the fire blasting out of Shoto's left arm cracked all the windows on the sides of the road around him. Bright red and orange tinted through the glass and shone on people's faces as the fire flew towards Dabi though most had their eyes squinted from the initial bright light that had erupted off Shoto's palm. The light flashed and the flames shot out of them straight at Dabi who pushed both arms in front of himself and fired as much blue flames as he could into the end of that attack.

The eruption of blue flames into Shoto's attack had too much force that it threw Dabi's back into the ice wall behind him. Shoto had melted all the ice in front of his feet though while skidding backwards at the same time through ice walls he was rapidly creating behind him only to break apart and then melt as they broke to the sides of his huge constant stream of flames. Shoto's right foot slid back behind him and planted down hard on the ground with another huge spike of ice forming there to finally hold him in place. Then he shoved his left arm harder forward as he expelled everything, because he could see the blue flames pushing back into his own attack that did not continue going through the air. It stopped at the ice wall that was cracking all over and had buckets of water pouring off it around where Dabi had collided. Steam and smoke shrouded the wall around the collision as Dabi was pushed farther in, and then the final burst of flames after Shoto stopped himself and slammed that arm forward collided into the back of the initial blast.

Dabi curled his hands forward and yelled out while forcing more flames- but the wall behind him that gave him some form of stability to keep attacking from broke too much. The wall cracked at his back where he had already melted so far through it. The whole wall around him shattered and Dabi's back leaned too far away from his arms, his legs kicking up and back for some kind of support that was no longer there. His focus was too much on his hands, and those hands got hit by the orange flames that pushed his blue flames up. "AHHHH!" Dabi screamed as Shoto's flames hit him. He fell backwards in the smoke and steam, ice shards falling around him and melting in midair to different degrees depending on how large they were.

Dabi's eyes had slammed shut in the agony, but he squinted them open and stared through blurry vision towards his arms. When the ice had broken, gravity had partially taken hold and Dabi was dropping out of the air instead of continuing upwards in the same diagonal angle that Shoto's attack was pointed. Most of his body had been spared as it fell just below the huge stream of flames, but Dabi's blurry eyes focused and his teeth bared wildly at the sight of the state of his hands. It burns, Dabi's eyes snapped from his fingers down through the falling ice wall in front of him and to the hunched-over form of his panting and gasping opponent. His fingers twitched and he bit down in pain, wincing from the burns that covered the only skin he still had on his arms that had been on his fingers.

Touya kicked his legs back with some flames shooting out the backs of his legs. He flipped around in the air and landed down on the ground in the midst of falling ice that broke apart on the ground around him. He glared towards Shoto through the cracking ice wall and then started marching forward. "I don't have nerves on my arms, Shoto," Dabi threatened the younger man who was staring with wider eyes and still panting as he used up so much power on that attack right there. Dabi spoke through the sounds of ice crashing down on the ground on both sides of the wall, his fingers twitching still in pain at his sides as he did, "My skin isn't even real. Not all of our bodies can handle the flames so well! But even you seem to be struggling, aren't you?!" Dabi yelled at the younger boy whose body was shaking as he tried to calm himself down, though neither cooling down or warming up were right when either side of Shoto's body was so far on the other side of the spectrum.

He held off the flames for too long that they melted the wall. Did I make it too weak? Should I have angled differently- It doesn't matter! He's coming! Shoto's left foot slid back on the floor as Dabi stepped up onto a chunk of ice just behind the largest pieces that had a wide gap between two spikes of ice for the brothers to see each other. Dabi was grinning towards him, but the look was more unhinged now. Shoto could see blood trickling off of Dabi's fingers that he had noticed were not covered in that purple skin stapled all over Dabi's body. Those fingers were twitching, but when Dabi's body started covering in flames again, he still saw those fingers. He doesn't cover his real skin in fire. He really, can't take the flames… Shoto's eyes widened as the flames around Dabi's arms slid down and covered his fingers that had lost the skin on them in that last attack and were bleeding badly. He looked up towards Dabi's face and saw the pain but still a smiling face that tilted back right before the steam shrouded him completely/ Dabi's legs did more than melt the ice below him but also evaporated it into a mist that filled the opposite side of the ice wall's remnants then started stretching onto Shoto's side.

He could see the blue tint inside the mist, but that blue glow vanished and Shoto's eyes bulged. Is he running? Is he drawing me in?! I have to block his escapes. I have to attack! Shoto stepped forward, readying his right arm that he brought up partially before the shadow shot forward out of the mist and onto his side of the wall he had just stepped towards. Dabi swung his left arm inwards and it erupted in flames at that instant. Shoto brought his right hand back down and swept it across the front of his body, but Dabi's flames melted through his ice. Then those flames shot past Shoto's left side as he barely jumped right in time. So much hotter! Shoto could feel those flames passing by him a few feet to his left. The speed at which they turned his growing ice wall into a puddle was also insanely fast compared to how quickly he knew his own flames could do the same.

Dabi was sprinting straight towards where Shoto jumped up. The angle of his own attack forced Shoto a specific direction. Dabi's right arm was already lifted up and covered in blue flames, and Shoto had to uncurl his left fist's fingers and blast flames from his palm in that very moment he saw Dabi only meters in front of him. Dabi fired first. Shoto flew up out of the blue flames, and his own fired blast into the floor just below where he had been about to land sent a shockwave and heat into Dabi who stumbled back even more after firing out that huge blue explosion of flames into his brother. Shoto snapped his head to the right as he felt the burns worst on his left side that was already so close to overheating, and where he attempted to get hit first as the other side of his body was still too cold that he would have gone into shock should he have been burned on the right side. He still got grazed on the right side but nowhere near as bad as the left where parts of his flameproof costume were even ripped off, showing the reddened skin below on his arm and side, and the burned skin damaged too much on the left side of his neck that it looked to be at least a second degree burn.

Shoto fell backwards in the air after firing himself up into the sky. A trail of smoke followed him up and was still trailing after though thinner during the drop. His focus darted to the left as he was falling, as he passed an intersection and saw a giant Spider robot that was marching on it had stopped in place. Villains around the base and near the legs moved aside as a hole opened in the bottom of the vehicle. A steel tube dropped out of the belly of the Spider. It was a huge metal cylinder that had a drill on bottom that imbedded itself into the street, then the object just stuck out of the road there without doing anything and without anyone around it paying it much attention. I saw another one of those blocks away, Shoto thought while his head turned back forward during his descent. He passed the intersection so he could no longer see down it and theorize about what else was happening in the city. His left hand rose up and he lightly touched the left side of his neck, and he winced at the feeling of the mushy skin that was clearly burned worse than anywhere else on his body where he could actually see his injuries.

Using his Quirk on parts of his body that can't feel pain… He still has to have a limit. But he knows my moves. He knows how I'll dodge because he knows how I was trained. It was how he was trained too. I don't know about his training with the League, or however he's trained since the accident. He knows my other training though. He knows Dad's training and what U.A.'s training entailed! Touya, I can't reason with you. I saw that look on your face right there, and you really want me dead. It drove you mad. What happened to you was… I hate what happened to you, but I can't let this go on. I have to stop you. Shoto stared down towards Dabi who walked down the road in his direction at a steady pace in no rush to charge the younger man who had proven himself a capable fighter but was no longer in control of this situation at all. I'm my own brother's keeper.

---

"This isn't good," Enorma lowered her right hand from her ear that she had cupped to make it easier to hear her sidekick. Her support team back in Yutapu had contacted her, and on top of a piece of land flying hundreds of miles per hours across the sky over Japan, the wind buffeted on the sides of All-Terrain's platform too loudly for her to easily hear them. She turned to Memuria who was already looking towards her employee and the strongest hero in all of Yutapu. "We've got a problem!"

"What is happening?" Hachiman called past the Principal and towards his colleague.

"Communication is still down in Tokyo, but there are multiple villain incidents outside of Tokyo metro! We've got two big hits outside of the city!" Enorma shook her head and called out to all the students and other heroes as well. "We can't just ignore these! Most heroes have already gone into Tokyo and can't be contacted to come back out and help on the outskirts! It's our job as reinforcements to be the ones taking care of this."

"Where do we need to go?!" Inasa yelled down towards the teacher below who was his homeroom teacher on Fridays this past term. The island flying through the sky started to slow for a second and it leveled out as well with everyone looking to the brunette teacher who grimaced harder at the thought of what they had to do here.

"We need to split up," Enorma said to Memuria directly. "U.A. is under attack by, something. The reports coming from Musutafu say that people saw what resembled a Nomu flying towards the school."

"Most of Class A- most of U.A.'s staff too would have gone to Tokyo!" Muoko shouted.

"Those kids are in danger," Hazano said in a low voice, but he did not rush to yell about heading there immediately. Enorma started with this incident instead of the other one which she seemed even more reluctant to mention.

"A train has derailed to the north of Tokyo due to fighting in the area. There are, also reports of a large force of villains in that area moving towards Tokyo. Rescue efforts are hindered due to a lack of heroes and split focus…"

"What is a 'large force?'" Tomoki wondered towards Enorma who seemed to hesitate when she was saying that.

"Several hundred, at least," Enorma replied after a moment. The others all stared at her with huge eyes at the response, only to gawk more as she added, "Moving fast with giant robots alongside them. It was described to me as, 'an army' moving on Tokyo."

"A Nomu attacking a school in one direction. An army moving on a derailed train in another. That's a lot of people to rescue," Reika said. Her eyes were darting around the people they had with them on this platform. Seventy or so of us. We don't know how strong that Nomu is. Hundreds of villains moving on Tokyo is bad too though. Without Zach or Deku, most of Tokyo would be rubble and ash at this moment. The League had a huge chunk of their forces laying in wait outside of the city. We don't know which villains are inside fighting the heroes there, or if the heroes in there actually need help or not. Some of us need to go in and assist in case they're getting killed right now. We can't abandon U.A. or the passengers of that train though! How much do we need to split up?!

"Every direction leads to incredible danger," Memuria said in a low voice. Her tone was dark and her eyes shifted in the direction they were still flying. They were getting too close though that she knew a decision had to be made in the next minute or so. I would not feel everyone here is safe even if we all responded to the same area. There is no assurance of safety anywhere…

"Dendo!" Muoko spun to her classmate. "Could you split this platform in half?"

"It wouldn't matter, because Inasa would have to put one half down anyway. He can't go both directions," Dendo countered the class rep who cursed under her breath but nodded in agreement there.

"If Inasa changes direction to approach from slightly south," Kaimie Sazzo began.

Muoko spun to her counterpart in Class 2 and nodded quickly along with her. "He can put half of us down in Musutafu, or at least close to U.A.'s campus and we can run from there! Then," Muoko snapped her head up to her classmate above them. "Take the platform and everyone else north and head off that army!"

"Do we really need to leave half for just the report of one Nomu-"

"We do," Hazano replied to Hisashi who did not want to be left behind for what would be a much bigger fight he assumed. "Depending on the class of Nomu it is, it could be the bigger threat here."

"Agreed," Memuria stated. She stopped hesitating after listening to her students react quickly and make plans without thinking of the fear or danger of what was about to come. She could see some of them anxious about it, but they had gotten on this platform knowing that they were rushing into battle. There is no going back now. "Keep going with a slight shift towards Musutafu, Inasa! Volunteers to come with me to U.A. raise your hands now! Inasa, take those into account and separate us in individual winds when you're close. Do not slow down on the way to the derailed train! You need to get there as fast as possible!"

Fast as possible, Inasa rose his head back up and stared off towards Tokyo. "Hold on," his voice was more intense than most of his classmates had ever heard him speak before. They gripped back onto trees and hugged them tightly in risen anxiety over his warning. Even his teachers gulped at the look on Inasa's face and the feeling of the platform below them tilting back forward so the top of the platform was facing the direction of Tokyo. It sped up, fast. Faster than it was going before.

Arms snapped back down to handholds. The people who rose their hands in that instant decision to face the Nomu instead of an army grabbed back onto the trees with both arms only to open their eyes widen in panic as they heard cracking sounds in the trunks they were holding. Memuria darted a look towards All-Terrain who just anxiously glanced back her way with an expression no longer as certain about the integrity of his platform. The creaking stopped though as Inasa noticed the difference as well. His winds shifted in front of the trees and his classmates' heads. Stronger gusts knocked off branches that were too weak that they would risk flying off without his intention if he did not do it on purpose. He ripped off thick branches that no one was holding onto while just separating the air more in front of ones that people were gripping onto for support.

The wind on the bottom of the platform sped up even more while Inasa flew directly over it. He parted the wind around him while flying a chunk of earth weighing well over a hundred tons after himself. They were not even at the battle yet, but Inasa started panting and bit down to try and stop himself from doing so. I can do this. Do this! Inasa yelled the motivation at himself and imagined the giant explosion he had watched on television. He never knew exhaustion! He never let it slow him for a single second! Inasa saw his friend standing on a street with his face half ripped off, his legs shaky, and yet his voice as loud and powerful as ever before. And I won't either!

The platform had been tilted upwards, so the students and teachers of Shiketsu were able to look directly ahead in the direction they were flying. There was a combination of shock hitting them from how quickly they were able to see the Tokyo skyline in the distance and from how much smoke was rising from that city and the surrounding areas. As much as Inasa tried to make it easier on them, lifting their heads and looking towards the same direction they were flying still got wind in their eyes and made a lot of them tear up. They had to look through blurry eyes and tearful vision towards the capital of their country, which at the moment was under siege by villains. Shigaraki is in there. Raijin too, Dendo glared towards the city he wanted to rush into and find those villains he hated with such furor.

If you don't finish the job before we do, Dendo continued to himself. He imagined Kirishima's face, then the faces of several other U.A. students he knew and had fought against over the past two years in their joint trainings. Then he thought of the most recent one and how they ended off. He thought of hanging out with some of them at Zach's apartment to watch boxing matches. I'm going to come in there and kick their asses for you. But… Don't let them down. Dendo thought a warning towards those students but at the same time wished them luck before shifting his gaze towards the north where he would be heading in a short time with Inasa and the half of this platform who did not raise their hands.

Dendo's gaze shifted to a girl holding onto the same tree as him. A Nomu's mind is most likely empty. Your place is definitely against that army, but… no. No, there is no "but." I don't know why I'm even thinking about it. "Same goes for you." Dendo heard Zach's voice in his head and he looked back down himself.

"It's pretty obvious to the rest of us who you're into, even if you won't let yourself think about it." Dendo then heard Kotsumura's voice on that same day that Zach got expelled. "Obvious?" I don't even know what you're talking… Dendo's gaze shifted back to the top of the head of the girl next to him who had it bowed because the wind shear in her eyes was too much that the tears started flowing. Dendo grit his teeth though after a second as he realized he just assumed wrong because of how the wind had affected him. Her hands shook as she gripped into the tree in front of her, and her teeth bit down on her bottom lip as she held back the pain she knew needed to subside before they arrived at their destination.

I've never been in someone's head more. No one, was ever that okay with me being there- because he could actually hide things! But, but he was still- we were still! Himazuri took in a sharp breath and shook her head back and forth. He was my friend. And I'm not going to let this go. Her head rose back up and she quickly rubbed her face over her shoulder to smear away the tears. Zach, I won't let any of their sacrifices be in vain. Nor yours. We will protect this world you saved!

"First group get ready!" Inasa yelled out without looking back at the people behind him. He could picture the flying island in his mind though. Winds started to swirl up over the sides of the platform and wrapped around individual people with precision. They started loosening their grips on the trees. Their feet felt lighter on the floor. On this flying object hurtling through the sky at several hundreds of miles per hour, the students and teachers of Shiketsu trusted in Inasa Yoroashi. They let go, and they were flung up into the air inside of wind funnels created by the teenager.

"Look at that," Bibi whispered in shock as she flew up on the right side of Reika and Kotsumura.

Dendo glanced up in the air after Ledoni who was flown into the sky by Inasa. His rival in Class 2 was glaring towards the same carnage as his classmates which made Dendo's gaze snap down too. Kimona was still on the platform even as his intern Ledoni was launched after the rest. He grit his teeth in concern for the boy as he saw the vehicles sticking out of walls of buildings in Musutafu. Cracked and dented walls, and even a diagonal skyscraper looking like something had slammed into it too hard on its side. There was a path of destruction through the city towards the huge campus of U.A. that was impossible to miss even from this distance. Inasa started turning them more towards the Tokyo metro as well, though he was aiming to go just past the city and to the north side of it.

Kotsumura stared through the line of carnage leading to U.A. They were flying straight towards it but already lowering down still a distance from the school. Inasa was lowering them down while keeping the group in his peripheral vision, but they were about to be out of sight and he had to lower them now. Inasa sent the group down to the street level and then pulled away his winds from them. Thirty-two people landed and started running towards U.A. where sirens blared from. Citizens were running the opposite direction down the street, but some of them slowed and stared in amazement at the group that just landed.

"Is that, Shiketsu-"

"Blaze!" A woman on the side of the road yelled towards Ledoni who glanced towards her then bit down hard at the bloody arm of her child who she held in her arms. "Please! My daughter's in the business school at U.A! Please!" She begged towards the boy who could see in her eyes the horror and crushing guilt of running away from her other child, in order to protect the younger one who was crying in her arms.

Other than the 32 who landed, one more Shiketsu student flew over the heads of the others straight towards U.A. "Hisashi! Wait-" Memuria was yelling up at her student, but Hisashi flapped his wings and sped away far too fast for her to stop him. "Everyone move!"

"Get to the school!" Kaimie yelled.

"Here we go," Elinari Shuu said in a soft voice. The shortest boy in Class 1 took in a deep breath then stomped his right foot down hard and used Quick Step. "Won't let you rush in alone, Hisashi," Elinari's voice came out higher-pitched as he sped down the street past all his other classmates and teachers.

"Elinari-" Adashi started yelling after him.

"Just run!" Reika yelled over her right shoulder. "And keep up!" Her eyes darted back to her left and a blond boy pushing ahead just in front of her now. "Keiji," Reika started in an intense voice as they sprinted towards U.A. where smoke was rising from campus buildings. Sirens blared from the campus, and they passed destroyed cop cars with bodies of police and heroes littered on the sidewalks and streets as they got closer to the school those authorities had tried to stop the monster from reaching. The more bodies they passed, and the more brutal the carnage got, the more focused and nervous they were all getting. Reika's head turned more to the side and she said to him seriously, "When we get in there… I mean, I want you to-"

"Tiona," Kotsumura's gaze stayed locked straight ahead. His teeth bared so hard after he said her first name. His eyes shook in anger as he glared down the street towards the broken gates and walls of U.A. His eyes shifted to the right for an instant and he stared at her in less hesitation and even more intensity than in her own gaze. "After. Okay?" Her eyes widened and her eyebrows went up, and then she looked back forward herself and nodded in agreement and understanding. Zach's dead, Kotsumura thought while glaring back ahead himself. Which means we can't have any distractions here. None of us get a second life. We die, that's it. That's what death always was. And that's what it is again. Kotsumura's fists clenched hard and he grit his teeth angrily as his eyes darted up following a huge explosion, tracking the dust and smoke that billowed into the air deeper inside U.A.'s campus on the other side of the mostly destroyed main building.

"I have to go up there," Maijima told the short mouse man sitting next to him. He was already on his feet and turning back for the door behind him. "It tore through every defense we had."

Principal Nezu turned in his chair and looked at Power Loader. He opened his mouth and Power Loader got a defiant look on his own, only to freeze as Nezu told him, "Protect the students."

There was no warning to 'be careful.' Power Loader's safety came secondary here, and he nodded back at Nezu after a second as his boss told him to go out there and fight the monster above. Nezu had prepared for a lot. He watched as Power Loader left though and he brought a small hand up to his face and covered his eyes for a moment with his teeth baring and grinding back and forth. I knew that the school would be unprotected, but all of our defensive ANTs, and all our other defenses, they were nothing! They were supposed to be "Anti-Nomu," so why did I make them so weak?! Nezu bit down in more fury while darting his eyes back to the screens showing surveillance around his campus.

All of the dorm buildings had gone into lockdown. The students had no idea that their dormitories were outfitted with blast shields. Some had been living in them for close to three years now, and they were staring through their windows at the thick steel on the other sides of the glass in amazement, and fear. They could hear the explosions outside. And some of them, could hear the roars. Some of those roars sounded like they were coming from Hound Dog, but the kids could only cower as their guidance counselor's countering roars turned into ones of agony rather than the sheer unbridled rage of the monster killing him.

Back deep inside of Musutafu but closer to the Tokyo-Musutafu border, All Might turned his head and looked back in the direction he had come from. His colleagues who had rushed off much faster than he could keep up with were no longer in sight. They were already inside of Tokyo and could not be reached to be told to come back. He turned again and looked into Tokyo, imagining the footage that cut off that had showed him his successor stopping Shigaraki Tomura from Decaying the city. He spun back towards the school he worked at that the sirens were blaring from but sounded softer than the louder ones just inside of Tokyo's limits.

All Might spun back and forth. He looked one last time towards Tokyo, but he imagined the strong young man he had been training over the past three years and shook off the fear he felt for Deku right now. I believe in you, Young Midoriya. All Might spun back around fully and started running back for U.A., his feet pushing down hard on the ground and his teeth clenching to hold back any panting breaths or coughs that he felt rising up his throat. I may not be able to do much, but I will do whatever I can!

"Lower it down here!" Muoko called out for her classmate above who had already slowed them as they flew over the train tracks heading north out of Tokyo.

The platform was leveled and the forty or so people on top of it were looking around in every direction of themselves with looks of dread. Roads were clogged out of Tokyo. Cars had crashed, and the drivers had gotten out to run away on foot instead which left the roads congested and full of people trying to flee the chaos behind them. Heroes and police in their area were yelling at those fleeing people to stop though, shouting at them to go the other way because of the villains to the north.

"They've kept villains from the crash so far," Himazuri whispered to Dendo who looked towards a derailed train that had come off of a track slightly lifted off the ground. That track had a huge hole in it, and one of the train cars was more badly damaged than others that were just off the rails and tipped to the sides. Himazuri and Dendo looked past it in the same direction towards a forest farther northeast that smoke was coming out of. They saw a tree come down in that forest, and they could hear the distant sounds of gunfire from the villains fighting heroes who headed off the "army" they heard about.

"But because they're focusing on giving people time to escape," Manzo started from behind her brunette friend who was surprised by how close Manzo stood to her. Manzo walked up past Himazuri's right side, showing Himazuri that she could fully release the tree now while Inasa lowered them towards the ground close to the front car of the derailed bullet train. "They are not assisting with the evacuation. Every hero who was here must have rushed off to slow them down."

"You're right," Kaan said softly. "I don't see a single hero down there." He was looking towards the wreckage from the train that had some civilians around it trying to take charge and help each other, but there were so many injured laying around the train and others still stuck in the damaged cars that it was shocking to imagine heroes had seen this and still ran off without helping them. Kaan rose his head back up as did Kameko at his side, and they stared off towards the forest that an explosion just went off in and shook the trees around it, knocking a few down.

"Inasa," Hazano started to his strongest student. The platform touched the ground, and Inasa looked down at his teachers. Hazano, Kimona, Thumper, Tarangla, Ms. Anastasia and All-Terrain were all looking up at him. His homeroom teacher gave him the most intense look he had seen Hachiman have before. "Be careful. Assist with getting the injured out of the train first and away from anywhere they could get a secondary injury."

"Everyone help out!" Muoko shouted around to the other students behind her.

Ivo nodded his head and turned to his right, calling out the same thing to other students who were mostly older than him. He felt so alone and out-of-place now that Mizahi had gotten off at the last stop to go fight the Nomu. He had a job to do though, and the first year in a bright blue costume called out while running forward, "Establish different areas for Ms. Anastasia based on how severe the injuries of these civilians are."

"You heard the kid," Tomoki snapped to two Class 3-2 students on his right who were giving the shorter boy weird looks. "Move it!" He yelled when they glanced towards him to see if he was being serious too about following his lead. Tomoki jumped forward off the platform and ran after Ivo, though he turned to his left and called to his teacher, "Can you make us some areas?"

"You've got it," All-Terrain replied. He ran after his students which made many more follow after Tomoki and Ivo.

"Careful, Inasa!" Muoko yelled up at her classmate. "People have already re-situated themselves inside. Don't just lift the train cars haphazardly!"

Inasa nodded back down and lowered himself to be able to see inside the windows and holes in the train walls. He looked into doorways and focused his wind on individuals he called out at not to worry as he lifted them with his Whirlwinds.

"AHhhh!"

"Help us!"

"We need to get out of here!"

"Everyone try to calm down," Tomoki called out around him. "We are going to assist in any way we-"

"AHHHH!"

"Oh my God, what is that?"

"What happened to the heroes who went that way?!"

Inasa lowered down six people he had pulled out of the rubble. He also lowered pieces of wreckage he had lifted up to more easily get them to safety. His head turned sideways and he looked off towards the forest farther northeast than them. "Robots?" Inasa thought, wondering more about the word used to describe them than what he was seeing. His eyes locked into the forest and at a pair of huge steel legs that stepped forward so they were just behind the tree line now. Then, his eyes scanned over to the right and then back to the left of those first two legs he saw, as two giant robots just as large as the first Spider each stepped forward around a quarter mile apart from each other.

"They stalled as long as they could," Hachiman said as he heard one of his students ask about the heroes who they had heard went to fight the villain army. His students looked to him with big shaking eyes at the implication of that. He spun back to them though, "Quickly now. Get everyone ready for evacuation. We need to move them from here."

There was not much in the way between the train tracks that cut north through Japanese countryside and forests, and the army of villains marching at them now. Behind them was an industrial sector and then a residential area that was still before the actual limits of the city of Tokyo. There were civilians all over the industrial area and the port, at the residents' homes and at their workplaces, and even before reaching Tokyo, the population density of this area was much higher than most places around the country. If we can't get them out of the way, Kameko looked around at terrified people who were looking to him for an answer and for help right now. That army is going to do so much damage.

"We need to fall back and make a protective line!"

"I saw heroes back there and the police stopping people from evacuating any closer to here. If we go link up with them-"

"We can't move all of these people! Too many are too hurt for us to just carry away without care," Ms. Anastasia yelled back at a different hero who pulled their head back with fear on their face at what she was telling them.

"But- we have to," the hero whispered back, while darting a look towards that forest again as heroes around them and the students of Shiketsu continued saving people from the derailed train.

Ms. Anastasia looked towards that forest herself and her eyes widened much more this time as she looked to the edge of it. The giant Spider robots marched forward so their front two legs were past the tree-line now. Onto the wide open expanse between the trees and the train tracks. Some areas covered in grass closer to the trees, while other areas closer to the tracks were cement-covered. On the natural side of the wide expanse to the north of the Tokyo suburbs, villains marched out of the trees between the Spiders. They came out underneath the bellies of the robots in between their legs too. They dropped down off of trees they had swung across or leapt between farther in the forest they had started in. And then above those soldiers of the League of Villains, came the robots larger than most of them were but still only around 8 feet tall. Dozens of humanoid-looking robots like the ANTs of U.A., flying forward with an army of villains multiple hundred strong, and still growing as more and more came out of the woodworks.

"An army," Manzo whispered. She stepped back, realization at what they had heard before hitting her harder than it ever had. What heroes went to stop that? Did they all get killed?! Her eyes shook between the top and nose part of her mask. Her eyes were all that was visible to the people around her who found themselves getting all the more terrified when that was how their heroes were looking. Not many could blame the teenage girl though as they stared off towards the same thing.

"We need vehicles over here, now!" Muoko yelled out.

All the hesitating people around her spun to the class representative of Class 1. "We need ambulances, or any kind of vehicle that we can fill up the people who need to be moved carefully! You six!" She yelled behind her to mostly Class 2 students as well as Tomoki. Her boyfriend nodded back at her as she called straight at him, "Go find these vehicles and get them here now along with anyone else you can find who can help us!"

"If you can walk or run on your own, start following Hachiman!" Dendo yelled out. He looked towards his homeroom teacher who spun to him in surprise. "They need a face they can trust. A pro hero," Dendo continued, nodding at his teacher and hoping he would just accept that.

Even though I believe you just want to stay here and fight yourself, Hazano thought. "Alright, All Slice." He turned and repeated what Dendo said louder and for more people to hear him and get up to follow. I know which of my students have already surpassed me. Dendo, I was not yet certain that you had at the start of this term. As strong as you already were then, Lifebringer forged you into one of the strongest heroes I have ever seen.

Thank you, sensei, Dendo thought. He turned and started jogging towards Inasa who was lifting off the ground himself. "Don't think you're going alone-"

"Dendo!" Inasa yelled out. His classmate actually skid to a stop at the sound of Inasa's tone.

"We need to fall back!" Drivress yelled, carrying some of the injured but rolling backwards and darting her eyes around the enemy lines only a couple of miles from them.

"Everyone start moving!"

"We have to evacuate these people-"

"Where?! You want to bring them to Tokyo?!"

"Nowhere is going to be safe! Not if the villains win!"

Inasa looked back down and to his left over at Dendo. "I'll take them on my own," he said to his classmate who looked at him with huge eyes already as he had seen that coming from Inasa just saying his name alone.

"Are you crazy?" Dendo wondered back up to him.

"I'm the strongest!" Inasa yelled back, making Dendo's eyes widen more that Inasa would shove that in his face. Inasa bit down though while darting his gaze towards that army of villains again. "And, the people of Tokyo need everyone they can get."

"We can't let you fight alone," Kimona called to his student.

"I can stall just as well-" All-Terrain began as well.

"We don't know what the damage is like inside the city!" Inasa yelled at them. "And they need everyone!" His head spun back and he stated in his most confident voice, "I can do this."

Kameko stared past Inasa and towards the distant forest where so many more villains kept emerging from. Those Spiders were intimidating on their own and looked bigger with every step closer they took. Are you sure about that?! Kameko thought while darting his gaze back straight to Inasa.

His stronger friend just turned back to that army he planned on fighting on his own. Inasa took in a deep breath and released it calmly. In his head he could picture the outskirts of Desusuta. The danger was behind them. The force moving in from outside the city was a distraction. That's all this is. A distraction. "Why did we leave Yutapu?" Inasa wondered that simplest question to those behind him. One person missing from helping Tokyo isn't as big of a loss. We can't all be stopped out here. "You need to get going," he said, after not hearing a response from those at his back to what he just asked them.

"You can't take them all alone," Dendo started. "As strong as you are… You need help." You're not him. Dendo did not say it aloud, but he shook his head as Inasa glanced out the corner of his vision and met eye contact with him. And even he- he wasn't usually alone! He had his friends. His comrades at his sides!

"Move back the perimeter!"

"Get everyone ready for immediate evac! Gale Force will stall as long as he can!"

Inasa smiled at the sound of a pro hero yelling that behind him. "There are millions of lives on the line," Inasa responded softly to Dendo alone, as others were listening to Inasa now and backing up to help everyone else. Even Inasa's own teachers were accepting his resolve at this point and backing away. Only Dendo still stood close to him, with Himazuri not far behind him and looking nervously at Dendo who she thought might be able to go rush at that army with Inasa. Her eyes looked past those two idiots in front of her, and she looked at three giant Spiders, dozens of AANTs, hundreds of men carrying automatic rifles and cannons that were glowing with green light. It was a horrifying sight, and it had her sweating badly as she imagined her friends running out there to take them on alone.

"Take care of things here, Dendo," Inasa said. He started flying forward, and an army of villains smirked towards the one stupid kid who was coming to face them. Inasa smiled and just said in a voice that he carried on the wind over to his friend behind him. "I'll see you later."

---

A/N Thanks for reading! Kaminari vs Class A. Endeavor vs Intanzo. Todoroki vs Todoroki (Dabi vs Shoto). And the arrivals of Shiketsu to Tokyo... or at least to the outskirts. The League's army is too massive that it stretches past the limits of Tokyo. Components of their army that were too difficult or risky to just bury under the city have moved in. The Scorpion and a hundred AANTs near Endeavor in the west. The Ultimate in Musutafu. An entire army marching on the city from the north. Everyone's so spread out at this point that it's tough getting in everyone each chapter, but I'll try to keep up speed on these updates! XD Hope you enjoyed the chapter! Leave me your predictions, comments, and questions down below! Review Response time:

papaprep chapter 244 . Jan 7

Im fcking hyped. Omg. This is too much

I dont think that kirishima and tetsutetsu will win without backup. We need the armyyy! And also Zach. I can see the similarities between zach and saitama situation now, both are too op and will be brought into the fight late..

Love to hype y'all up! We'll see about that Kirishima and Tetsutetsu fight... As for Zach being like Saitama, well, you could say that about any OP character really. Captain Marvel showing up late in Endgame. Goku always being late to like every single battle. Late to fight Vegeta, and to fight Freiza, and he was made sick when the Androids showed up. Naruto coming in at the end of the Pain Arc- Anyway! It's a great way to make sure everyone else still gets their epic fights and doesn't get sidelined themselves. Not saying that's happening here, because maybe Zach's really dead! ... But it is a common trope for a reason. ;P Thanks for reviewing! Hope you enjoyed the chapter!

Angryshadow04 chapter 244 . Jan 7

Predictions: the AOD will show up to fight the jazz.
Bakugo will almost lose to big chungus but will use the biggest explosion ever to spank him.
Class A will get fucked up with possibly a few dying and Momo will be an inch from death when either Zach or Gentle stop Rajin.
Dabi and Todoroki will begin next chapter with Dabi losing but telling Todoroki a secret about Jenny being cloned or some shit.
Deku and Shigaraki, Endevour and Intanzo and Zach and Rajin will be the final fights.
Also I think Deku might come close to winning until All for one comes out of nowhere forcing Deku to break his limits.
Ok predictions over here's my review. Overall the backstory for the Royal family is interesting but I wish you introduced them earlier swing as how important they seem. I was right in assuming that Bakugo will have a bigger role in this chapter which is nice.
Overall good chapter and I'm happy you updated so quickly lol. One day after my birthday trough so it's a shame that you gave me a late present ya dog.

Love all the predictions! Can't say if many are right, but great call on Dabi and Todoroki starting this chapter! Glad you enjoyed the Royal Family, but there was really no point in me adding anything about them earlier on in the story. They don't have much political power, just a ceremonial position actually. I had the thought for them a long time ago and knew I'd be putting it into the final war arc, but other than some light foreshadowing, there was nowhere else to really bring them into it. It's like the US Special Forces. It's a cool concept and makes sense that some nations would have armed branches still, but it didn't really matter until it did. I didn't even describe the Special Forces when those characters joined Zach, rather I went into it much later when Jirou and Ms. Clue had a scene of exposition as they talked about surveilling Blackstar, that was it wasn't even just straight narration about their backstories but a relevant reason to bring all that up. World-building comes into play when the plot demands it. And in that chapter all about the Royal Family, some world building became necessary again. I love this AU of BNHA, and I love building up a world full of Quirks in a ton more detail than is in the manga, even delving into the history and science of Quirks, but that world gets built around the plot... Anyway, just trying to explain why it did take so long for me to bring it up when it was a cool concept, right?! Happy to give you a birthday present, and happy birthday! (Even if it was about 2 weeks ago now). Thanks for the review!

The Great Wolf 117 chapter 244 . Jan 8

Never reviewed before, just wanna say a thing. I love your stories man, and i'm always waiting for new chapters. Take care

Thanks so much! Really made my day reading this one and I'm glad you're into my stories! Have a good one, and hope you enjoyed the new chapter!

Dandydrewz chapter 244 . Jan 10

Can't wait to see how Red Riot and Real Steel will work things out either, taizo reminds me a lot of the the villain that had the bear quirk that used the apocalypse drug (can't remember his name). Just a crazy beast with overwhelming strength

Glad I hyped up that fight a lot as it seems like many of you are looking forward to how it goes. Taizo does seem a bit like Dandy (that guy you're talking about), though more nuts. His Quirk is pretty scary though, worse than Dandy's was, though once he was on Apocalypse... Well, anyway. Thanks for the review, and sorry to not pay off that fight just yet, but there are a lot of characters and a lot of scenes to write so some are going to miss out on some of these chapters! XD Hope you enjoyed though!