Author's Note: The long awaited return is finally here! Now that I'm moved into my new apartment and have returned from a graduation cruise to the Bahamas, I can update! Look at that! I have up through 32 written so far, so there's a decent chunk of backlog again. Here's to more updates soon!
Also, if you want to get into a place with other lovers of MHA, and specifically IzuJirou stuff, come on and join this Discord server that I'm on:
/eFtmT8cTbY
We're only kind of crazy, and not at all a cult... except, we also kind of are. Anyway, yeah, join that!
I hope you enjoy this chapter! It's cross-posted on Ao3 as well. Leave a review if you want to. I welcome the feedback! See you next week.
As soon as Izuku was no longer next to them, it took a few seconds for the group to process what had happened. Their leader puked up gray goo, and then he was gone. He was now next to the most powerful villain that any of them had ever seen or heard about.
And then once they all saw Izuku get shrouded in a very familiar dark cloud, the rest of the members of Societas Requiem jumped into action.
Himiko grabbed hold of Fumikage, who used Dark Shadow to glide down to the ground. Kyouka and Hitoshi climbed down the side of the building, and Mei stayed at her position on top of the roof.
"I'm staying up here. I'll support however I can by providing covering fire." Mei said over comms.
"Heard." Kyouka and Hitoshi both said back. As each of them got to the ground, they turned around and surveyed the situation.
Pro heroes were unconscious on the ground, Best Jeanist had a hole going through his abdomen, the All For One guy abducted Izuku and shrouded the both of them in what looked very similar to the Blackout villain's quirk, and now the League of Villains stood between them and Izuku.
"We're gonna save you, Snake Eyes!" Kyouka yelled as she and the other grounded members of Societas Requiem charged forward towards the League of Villains.
As they approached, the man with a bunch of hands stepped out of the darkness. Kyouka remembers him being called Tomura.
"Sensei said to deal with them." Tomura said. "Unfortunately, Dabi and Kurogiri are taking a long rest. We'll just have to make due with our current party comp."
"I don't understand what that means." A man in a complete bodysuit said. "What a great metaphor, Shigaraki!"
"Let's get to it, then." Shigaraki said as he started to move towards the approaching vigilantes.
Himiko and Hitoshi quickly vanished into the shadows. Fumikage and Kyouka took up fighting stances.
One man began to laugh maniacally and charged towards the duo of Fumikage and Kyouka. His muscles bulged and swelled under his cloak, eventually ripping the cloak entirely. "You're going down! I'm gonna crush you like I crushed that pervy grape kid!" He dashed at Fumikage only for his punch to be deflected by Dark Shadow.
As that man reeled from having his attack deflected, Kyouka took the opportunity and charged at him. Her jacks connected to her gauntlets, and she punched the man's exposed muscles with sound increasing the power of the strike.
The man's muscles shivered and retreated into the man's body.
"Sound travels faster through dense muscle." Kyouka said. She smirked even though nobody could see it.
The man grunted and flexed his muscles out again. Before he could attack again, a lizard man jumped over his back and tried to slice Kyouka with a sword.
She jumped out of the way of the sword attacks only to be gut-checked by the muscular man's fist.
The muscled man's fist was then adhered to the ground by a sticky pink goo. A single shell was chambered out of Mei's rifle on the rooftop.
The man broke through the glue with sheer strength.
"That's weak. I could've gotten out of that even easier than you did." A voice came from seemingly nowhere.
"YOU WH-" The large muscular man immediately stopped moving.
"Come forth, Dark Shadow! Midnight Berserk!" Fumikage yelled. Dark Shadow appeared and then swelled to a massive size with a roar. Dark Shadow's arms and tendrils slammed into the large man, making a crater in the ground. The man was unconscious and his muscles had faded back into his body. Several large shots of glue splattered around on the man's body.
Dark Shadow retreated back into Fumikage's body. Both he and Kyouka looked at the other villains after taking down that man. The remaining villains faltered slightly before Tomura stepped forward. His left hand clawed at his neck as he moved.
"So Muscular is down. That's fine. He was never one for tactics. It's always about rushing in, Leeroy Jenkins style. Whatever. Our boss-raid strategy can still work. We'll take you down. You didn't join the guild, so now you have to deal with the consequences."
"Bring it on, sad handjob!" Kyouka taunted.
"Let's figure out what you are." A large looking person carrying a small-ish monolith covered in cloth said.
Kyouka began to glow a faint pink, and once that glow happened, the villain raised their covered weapon, and Kyouka felt herself start to move closer. As Kyouka flew towards this person, the lizard man leaped at her with a yell. "Thanks, big sis!" His sword flashed in front of Kyouka's face, but it was deflected by another blade. Himiko leapt between Kyouka and the lizard to intercept the strike with a knife blade.
Kyouka continued on her forced path, nodding at Himiko as she passed. Himiko returned the gesture and deflected a few of the lizard man's attacks before returning her own swings at the man. The lizard man parried most of Himiko's strikes, but a single thrown blade managed to catch him in the stomach. She tackled him to the ground, and as she did, glue splattered on his limbs. Himiko used a vial to collect his blood and then disappeared again.
Kyouka kept flying towards 'Big Sis' and her covered weapon. As she flew closer to the large woman, the weapon's covering unfurled, and Kyouka saw that it was an actual magnet that was pulling her closer. The glow around her faded, and the woman in front of her slammed the magnet into her as her momentum carried her.
Kyouka grunted in pain as the attack slammed her into the ground. She felt the breath leave her body as she gasped in shock.
'Big Sis' grabbed Kyouka's head and lifted her up and held her up to eye level. "We don't want to do this, but we have to. I hope you understand."
"Then I hope… you can understand… too…" Kyouka grunted out as she made her jacks plug into her gauntlets. She grabbed hold of the large woman's head with her hands and blasted her quirk through her gauntlet speakers. Kyouka was immediately let go as her opponent grabbed their head in response to the pain. Kyouka didn't let up until the woman was unconscious. She was then promptly glued to the ground by Mei.
Kyouka took a deep breath and she was finally able to expand her lungs again.
Meanwhile, Fumikage had been in a hand to hand sparring match with the man in the full white and black bodysuit. Using Dark Shadow to cover himself was a good idea. The man that Fumikage found himself facing was… unstable at the very least, most likely clinically insane. The man contradicted himself almost immediately close to every time he spoke.
But Fumikage could save his thinking about that for later. Now, he had to focus on dealing with said mentally unstable person. And he was a decent fighter. He was unpredictable, and that threw Fumikage for a loop sometimes. But through the barrages of punches, kicks, and, for some reason, the occasional sharpened measuring tape, Fumikage managed to feint a strike with Dark Shadow only to catch the man with his real attack as he dodged out of the way.
The dodge was intercepted by a blast of blue flame. Fortunately for Fumikage, Dark Shadow intercepted the attack. Unfortunately for him, with how bright it was, Dark Shadow immediately became meek from the brightness of the blast, and he retreated back into Fumikage.
With a singed cloak, Fumikage looked in the direction the blast came from to see one of the people he thought was unconscious. He could have sworn the guy with the burn scars was down already. He looked back to where he remembered the body being only to get more confused. The body was still there.
Kyouka had managed to see what was happening, though. She ran towards this new fire guy and punched, amplifying the hit with her sound. After the single hit, the body of the man exploded in some kind of muddy substance.
"A clone?" Fumikage asked, looking at the mud.
"Behind you!" The man in the body suit yelled from behind Fumikage. "In front of you!" Before any attack could land, though, the man was shot on the back with a glue round.
He fell to the ground, but before any more rounds hit him, a well-dressed man dashed to him and turned him into a small blue bead. "I've got you, twice!" He yelled as he dashed away again with the man-ball-thing in hand.
Fortunately for Fumikage and Kyouka, Hitoshi slipped out of the shadows with his cloak with a kick to the man's head. He clearly didn't see it coming, which worked wonders for Hitoshi. The blindside kick knocked him to the ground in one hit, to which he was promptly contained.
As the well dressed man lost consciousness, the guy in the full body suit – Twice being his name if the well dressed man could be trusted – emerged from the orb only to be promptly glued down to the ground as well.
That left a single person remaining.
Tomura.
"Y'know, when I heard that you kidnapped the walking nuke from UA's sports festival and killed another UA kid, I was a bit worried when I saw you guys." Hitoshi taunted. "Seems to me like all the hype was for nothing."
Tomura didn't respond. He just continued to scratch his neck, but he added his other hand.
"Seems to me like you get all your lackeys to do the dirty work for you. Only getting your hands dirty when you absolutely have to." Another Hitoshi walked out of the shadows of their battle site. Tomura looked shocked.
"Oh, you weren't expecting this, were you? You may have possibly figured out my quirk, but what will you do now? When there's two of me?" The first Hitoshi said.
"I'll give you a hint, though. Only one of us has the quirk. You can respond to one of us, but not the other. Which one will it be?" The second one said. "We'll keep going until you decide, though." The two Hitoshis began to circle around Tomura.
"You seem scared to be running this organization. That's not a good look for a leader of such an infamous group. But I guess that's what's gonna happen when you're the puppet figurehead. Now people are gonna know that terminator over there is the real leader."
"And you're gonna be nothing more than maybe a footnote in the history books. If that."
"Does he even care about you? Is someone like that even capable of caring about you?"
That seemed to do the trick, as his eyes widened in anger. "He does c-!"
"Ah, that was easy." One of the Hitoshis said.
"Changeling, collect blood from whoever you want to." Mei said over comms. "I've been keeping an eye on the black cloud, and it seems to move every now and then. I think it moves with the person at the center. I'm gonna try to hit All For One with glue."
"Heard!" One of the Hitoshis, now Himiko, said rather cheerily. She skipped over to each person and began to siphon blood from her combatants into different phials. Mei shot Tomura once his blood had been taken, knocking him to the ground and restraining him.
"Now wish me luck." Mei said as she took a deep breath. This was probably one of the most important shots she'd ever have to take. Her heart was pounding, but she slowly exhaled and let the shot free between heartbeats.
The round made impact with her mark. Truly a shot in the dark, and yet, she hit it. The field of darkness faded, and all of them could see Izuku, an unconscious Bakugo, and All For One where the field used to be.
"Yes!" Mei said to herself with a congratulatory fist pump. She then spoke over the comms. "We're gonna save you, dumbass! Grab the asshole and let's get out of here!"
"Sorry, dad." Izuku said. "I have my group, and I can't give them up." He stood up and started running towards Bakugo's unconscious body.
Kyouka was the only one to hear what Izuku said to the man, and she and him were going to have a TALK later. But that comes later. Now, she had to save her boyfriend and the exploding chode of Izuku's childhood bully. Why they had to save the latter, Kyouka had no idea, but she was here and willing to help her boyfriend. That was what was most important, right?
"Yes, your group... Your group that took care of Tomura's own group." All For One said. He simply watched as Izuku grabbed Bakugo and began to run off towards his group. "You have something special with them. If you will not take lead of the League of Villains, then Tomura has some things to learn." All For One said. He turned to Tomura. "You must learn. Always keep learning. Learn to fight better, to work as a team. These people were better organized and played to their strengths. Take your place as the leader of this."
Tomura, now conscious due to the blows from the glue impacting his body, looked incredibly downcast at these words. "I am sorry master, forgive me."
"Already done, my boy. As I said before, it's all for you. Everything is for you. I just ask that you learn." All For One said.
By this point, Izuku had managed to haul Bakugo to the rest of his group.
"You already got what you wanted. We just want him." Izuku said, motionting to Bakugo's unconscious body.
"By all means, take him. He serves no purpose now." All For One said. "The impact he has had on the heroes has already been felt. The seeds of doubt have been sewn. I suppose tonight has helped the both of us."
"Sensei, look out!" Tomura yelled. As soon as he yelled that, Izuku, Kyouka, Hitoshi, and Fumikage saw Himiko managing to barely stab All For One with one of her knives.
All For One staggered to the side, removing the knife from his arm in the process. Himiko soon disappeared again.
"She's gone!" Twice said. "She's actually gone!"
"Infrared should have made it so I could see them approach. Oh well." All For One said, shrugging. He suddenly cocked his head slightly to the side. "So… You're here after all, aren't you?" He said as he slowly turned around.
The smoke that surrounded the battlefield due to the previous fighting suddenly dispersed and All Might fell into the area at mach speeds. All For One caught All Might's advance with both of his hands. The shockwave that resulted in the impact almost knocked a few people over.
"I'll have you return everything, All For One!" All Might yelled with a fury that none there had ever seen.
"Oh, are you going to 'kill' me again, All Might?" All For One's voice was monotone and unimpressed.
The show of strength persisted, and eventually exploded outwards with great force. This time, it was enough to send people flying. The grounded members of Societas Requiem were blasted away from the impact crater. Unfortunately, the force from the blow was strong enough to remove most of the glue that was holding the members of the League of Villains down to the ground.
Nobody moved; they all just sat there in shock.
"You're late, All Might." All For One taunted. "It seems you're getting slower. The distance between the bar and here isn't that big. It's been what, forty-five seconds? Maybe more? You're getting weaker."
"And what about you, with that face mask you're wearing? You seem to be overexerting yourself." All Might responded, his tone unwavering. "I'm not making the same mistake that I made six years ago. I am going to take young Bakugo back, and I'm going to throw you in prison!" All Might clenched his fist. "And I will throw the League of Villains in there with you!" He launched himself at All For One.
All For One raised his arm, and as he spoke, his arm swelled and expanded in an absolutely horrific showing. "If you're looking to save the boy, you're a bit late for that, and you're after the wrong person." A massive blast of air burst forth from All For One's raised hand. All Might's advance slowed to a crawl, and he was about to make contact until All For One's hand exploded, sending All Might flying away.
"Now, while he is distracted, you can make your escape, Tomura." All For One said. His fingertips extended and pierced into the purple mist man that was unconscious before. "Kurogiri, get everyone away from here." The man – Kurogiri – began to convulse, and before long, a massive swirling purple gate appeared from his head. "Haha!" All For One laughed. "Forced Quirk Activation!"
"But what about you, Sensei?" Tomura asked as he stood up from the ground. "And what about them?" He pointed towards the members of Societas Requiem.
"Let them go. They got what they came for, but so did we. His quirk is mine, and it will one day be yours. Now…" All For One began to float into the air as All Might leaped back towards him from the rubble. "Think constantly, Tomura. You still have much more room to grow!"
"L-Let's go, Shigaraki!" The well dressed man said as he shakily stood up. He touched the other unconscious person – Dabi, if that is to be believed – and compacted him into one of the blue pearls from before.
"I'm not letting you get away!" All Might yelled as his fist once again impacted with All For One's hands.
"It's too late, All Might." All For One said as his other hand once again extended, but this time into the body of 'Big Sis'. Their body glowed, and then blasted a magnetic pulse. Tomura was ejected away from All For One via the pulse and through the portal, as were the rest of the members of the League of Villains. All For One then threw 'Big Sis' body through the portal as well. At that, Kurogiri vanished, and the League of Villains with him.
All Might and All For One then squared off against each other. What soon followed was a barrage of punches from All Might that were blocked by All For One. While the show was incredible, their likelihood of sustaining a high amount of physical injury increased with every second they stayed there.
"We're leaving." Izuku said over comms. "We take him to Shouto Todoroki, as discussed already."
"Heard." Quite a few people replied over comms. They disappeared from the scene while air pressure constantly shifted around them. The sounds of punches and blocks echoed through the ruins of the former warehouse.
Izuku took out his phone and sent a message to Shouto, telling him to meet the group a few blocks away.
"NightHawk. Can you carry this one?" Izuku gestured to Bakugo.
"Of course, Snake Eyes." Fumikage nodded, and Dark Shadow came out of Fumikage and grabbed hold of the now quirkless boy.
"We're moving, come on." Snake Eyes said, gesturing away from the battlefield.
A few minutes of ducking through alleyways later, Snake Eyes saw the hair of Shouto and stopped moving.
"Boss?" Mei asked. Izuku simply pointed ahead of him.
"Shouto Todoroki!" He yelled. He then realized that there were more people there than just Shouto. Four more people, in fact. One of them was incredibly familiar to the members of the group. "And Tenya Iida. It has been a while, yes?" Alongside the two that they knew, the other three were memorable due to their appearance in the UA Sports Festival: Eijirou Kirishima, Momo Yaoyorozu, and Mina Ashido.
"It has, and I still wish to thank you for saving my life." Iida bowed deeply.
"Of course. We wish to help people." Izuku responded.
"By breaking the law?" The raven haired Momo Yaoyorozu asked.
"And you are?" Izuku feigned ignorance.
"Heiress to the Yaoyorozu fortune." She stated with a raised chin.
"Alright, miss Yaoyorozu." Izuku said as he stepped forward. "You may have problems with how we do things, but let me ask you a question. If we weren't here, what would you have done to save your classmate? We know that you five were there at the showdown. What, were you going to fight them? How does that make you any different from us? Intent versus actions?" At this point, Izuku was very close to Yaoyorozu's face.
"Snake Eyes." Kyouka said. "You've made your point."
"Keep that in mind." Snake Eyes turned around. "The heroes were unable to save him. You were unable to save him. We did. Not entirely, but we saved what we could. NightHawk, hand him over."
Dark Shadow gave Bakugo to the group of students.
The redhead, Kirishima, stepped forward. "Not entirely? He looks whole to me."
"I wish that was the case. His quirk was taken." Izuku said.
"What?!" Kirishima asked.
"That villain has the power to take and give quirks as he pleases. He stole Bakugo's quirk against his will. Bakugo refused to join the League of Villains, so All For One took the next best thing: his quirk. I couldn't save him in time." His voice dropped in volume. "I'm sorry."
"I… I see… Well, we thank you for saving him and getting him back to us." Shouto said.
"Yes, of course. As I said, we want to help people." Izuku said. "Come on, everyone. We're leaving now." He left immediately. The rest of the group followed after him shortly after, albeit after some brief hesitation.
The trip back to the van was rather silent. Once they got back to the van, Kyouka sat next to Izuku.
"Izu, are you okay?"
"No, but we move on. We keep doing what's right, even though we can't do everything. We can't save everyone." Izuku said as he took his mask off. Kyouka could see tear stains on his face. She said nothing else, but instead just hugged him for the rest of the drive back.
They got back a little bit later. Himiko quickly jumped onto the couch and turned on the TV. Immediately, the news came on to show All Might's triumphant stand against All For One, the massive crater left behind, and the bloodied and bruised body that All Might now boasted.
"I'm going to bed." Izuku said as he took his costume off. "I suggest that you all do the same. We had a big day today. We've earned some rest." He walked to his room and collapsed on the bed, his eyes shutting shortly after. A few minutes later, he felt a pressure on the bed and arms wrap around him.
"Hey Kyo…" Izuku said.
"Hey Izu…" Kyouka sighed into the embrace.
"I'm tired." Izuku stated simply.
"I know." Kyouka said. They both fell asleep shortly after. It was restful for the both of them. They were exhausted, and understandably so.
Mirio Togata was someone that some people might call strange. His unwavering optimism and ways at cracking jokes could be unnerving to some, but he was content with himself. He was in his last year at UA, and things were looking up. Thanks to Sir, he had developed his quirk to a degree that made him seem untouchable. He had no real complaints about his life.
What surprised him, though, was the knock on his door somewhat late at night.
A groggy Mirio dragged himself out of bed to find the last person he expected to see at his doorstep in the middle of the night.
"A-All Might?" He asked drowsily.
"Hello, young Togata. May I come in?" All Might asked.
"Y-Yeah, sure. Come on in. I wasn't expecting this."
"Young Togata, I am going to tell you about my quirk." All Might said, his face incredibly serious.
Mirio gulped.
