So this is it kids, the big one, the finale. At a whopping 8600 words it comes in like a wrecking ball.

Enjoy my dudes.


"What?"

The question floated in the air like a dumbfounded ghost. Izuku's jaw almost literally hung open and would have done so if his body's worn-out groaning wasn't keeping him on guard.

His body ached. Every part of it ached with the effort of using Nemesis so swiftly and so strongly in such a short amount of time. He wanted to curl under his covers at home, forget everything in the wide world and sleep for a thousand years. He wanted to feel his mother's soft fingers running through his hair as she told him everything would be okay.

He didn't want to be here, staring at a man covered in disembodied hands, each marked with a symbol that seemed to set fire to something deep inside his soul and lingered like sand behind his eyelids.

He didn't want to be looking to his flickering living shadow, the being who called itself Kurogiri, who set off klaxon warning sirens in his mind because he wasn't human.

Izuku didn't want to look only slightly to his left to see a hulking demon covered in blasphemous, glowing blue symbols holding the unconscious, blood-soaked head of his Sensei in one hand like he was a child's plaything.

But he was.

He was here because he refused to turn away when others were in need. He refused to let the monster inside him turn him into a coward. He refused to let the darkness in his soul consume him and drag him from the light forever.

He was here. And dammit, he would not turn away.

Izuku's scars were burning hot, rising with each passing heartbeat. Nemesis was alive and roused within him, flexing its claws through his blood, whispering darkness to the depths of his mind and urging him to take a step forward.

To let it take control.

To kill them all.

"You're both corrupted, right?" Tomura spoke finally, his voice a cruel, harsh scrape of nails on a chalkboard, a rake of a chipped blade along a ragged concrete wall. "Your souls I mean. Don't pretend like you don't already know."

"You, Crow-Child." Kurogiri's voice was a deep resonating tone, almost clashing with the manner of his ghostly body, "You are the seventh son of your line, cursed from birth." He moved beside his master and Izuku could almost feel Fumikage's feathers rise as the teen continued to hold his ground beside him. "Your soul has been claimed by a demon, which marks you as already damned to the unholy flame."

Then the demon's tarnished gold gaze moved to Izuku, "And you…" He trailed for a moment, his eyes narrowing and his voice growing strangely low, "What manner of-"

"We're not joining you." Fumikage cut him off suddenly, his voice sharp and angry. His good hand came from under his cloak and Izuku's eyes glanced quickly to him. He was already holding his bottle of holy water in his grasp. "I would rather die than side with your kind."

A familiar phrase, one Izuku had already become acquainted with. But never had he heard Fumikage speak it with such hate.

Something was happening to him. Something awful was entering his gaze and Izuku was suddenly struck with a horrible, terrible sense of deja-vu.

All this time he had thought Fumikage had his monster under control, a grumbling but willing familiar-quirk who obeyed his every command. Now, sharply, he realized that maybe he was wrong.

Maybe Dark Shadow was just as corrupting as Nemesis. Fumikage had it under a tighter leash than Izuku ever had, but it was still there. Still whispering dark thoughts into his mind. Still pushing him to just give in.

Izuku's hand was on Fumikage's shoulder within a second and the boy seemed to jolt out of the shadow that had been crawling across his mind. Crimson eyes turned to look at his emerald own. Izuku said nothing, but the shock faded into a sudden shame within Fumikage's gaze, and then a minute nod of thanks came from him.

"HA!" Tomura's laugh was a grating, almost painful sounding cough. "Look at you two, struggling with every step you take. I wonder why?" He cocked his head slowly, "You know you're damned, so why fight it? Join us. Revel in the dark, shed all the blood you could ever want, take their souls for your own. You're natural born villains, no, more than that, you're natural born demons. You cannot ignore the call of Hell, not when the End so quickly approaches. Just give in and join us, my brothers."

A dragon's claw ran down Izuku's spine and he felt fire rising within him, almost burning into his throat and setting every scar alight. He held it back, desperately, almost forcing it as a choice between keeping himself standing and keeping Nemesis at bay.

To be called brother by this- this monster of a human being. It was wrong. It was so wrong that it raked violently at every moral Izuku held within himself. His heart burned, and his mind spat at the very thought of it. Even his soul, his poor, tattered, corrupt soul seemed to recoil at the concept.

And yet he couldn't deny that there was a part of himself that was tempted. A dark, awful part of himself that he hated to admit was even there. The part of him which enjoyed the pain he inflicted on others, which reveled in standing tall in violent triumph, which loved the sight of ruby red blood, and the rush of life-threatening battle.

But that wasn't all of him, and it wasn't who he knew he was.

"You- you're wrong." Izuku stammered out, his breath in short, sharp gasps. "We're good, no matter what curse has us we're never going to give in. Do you hear me, villain?" His voice was rising, Nemesis was flowing power into his limbs, and the hate and anger was fueling him. His eyes sharpened into a determined glare, dark yet bright, and his hands curled into fists with nails that were sharp and stabbing into his palms.

He knew he needed to step back from the brink, but he only needed to hold them just a little more, just until reinforcements arrived. Maybe, just maybe, he could scare them into stalling.

After all, Kurogiri was terrifying, the monster by Tomura's side was terrifying, even Dark Shadow was terrifying.

But Nemesis was something beyond that.

"We're never going to stop reaching for the light!" Izuku's voice rose ever louder, ever more determined. He raised his fist to his chest in defiance, "We're never going to stop trying to save lives and help others! We're not evil, we're not villains, we're not damned, and we're not your brothers! We are HEROES!"

As his words echoed through the vast dome of the USJ, Tomura's chin raised up slowly in dismissal. His face twisted as his expression turned ugly behind his mask. "Fine, have it your way."

The air soured, and it became hard to breathe. The light above seemed suddenly darker as if a shadow had passed across the sun, and Izuku could hear the pounding of his own heart through his ears. In an instant, he knew his gambit had failed. Tomura wasn't intimidated, he wasn't scared, all Izuku had done was mildly annoy him.

Even as the villain raised his hand, Nemesis was racing through his system. The dam was cracking, the black power spilling over and flooding into his scars. He could feel the shadow-black of his accused quirk growing in patches across his skin like ink blots.

"Master wait-" Kurogiri urged again, a note of panic in his tone, "The child-"

"Legion!" Tomura barked out, ignoring the shadow at his side, "Kill them both!"

The world shifted on its axis and time slowed to a crawl.

Izuku blinked and Legion was already on top of them. A fist the size of his torso was falling down upon Fumikage. A mouth lined with spit and bone-shard teeth was open and grinning and laughing as the boy seemed to be only now just noticing the monster was upon him.

Izuku's curse acted on instinct. He couldn't let Fumikage die, he couldn't let anyone die. There was no argument, no pulling back the leash. There was only fire and shadow.

Within that moment, Izuku felt the dam break.

Within that moment, Izuku drowned in the blasphemous power he kept within him.

Within that moment, Nemesis roared.


There was a second where Fumikage knew only sound. It was a sound he was familiar with, though never quite like this, never quite this loud, never quite this furious.

It was a roar. A roar that didn't simply bleed his ears but reached down into him through his ears and lungs and began strangling something inside his heart. A roar that was not of this world, but of myth and legend. The roar of a monster, of something that mankind knew not on principle but on spirit, of ancient, genetic, instinctual knowledge of what true evil sounded like.

But a roar that, for a second, was everything Fumikage knew.

And then came the fire.

It was bright blue and corrupt and terrible and wrong and it hit him with the force of a speeding car. The blast threw him clear within half a heartbeat, far from the thing called Legion, far from the boy he wished he could trust but knew it was folly to do so.

The fire-heat hit him like a tidal wave, and for a fleeting moment, he thought he would be burned alive. Something huge and black leapt between his face and the sudden explosion and within the blink of an eye he found himself colliding with a nearby bush.

It took him a moment of dizzying, maddening senselessness to realize that Dark Shadow had saved his life. His quirk-familiar, however, was in immense pain. He could feel it through his own body, burning skin he didn't have and melting bones he didn't use.

And yet even that pain was blanketed by the sound of the roar and the horror and fury it contained. It rattled his brain and tried to stop his heart and stole the breath from his lungs.

It was the screaming of ten thousand bloodied blades. The cries of a burning city. The roar of an ancient battlefield, hot and wrathful and violent. The cry of hate made manifest.

Crimson eyes opened, and for the second time in under three seconds, the breath was stolen from his lungs.

Through a gap where he had collided with the branches of the bush, he beheld Nemesis.

What had once been the Izuku Midoriya was simply no more. This thing, this demon, was far beyond the pale skin, the exhausted eyes and scarred features of the teenager it inhabited.

Legion roared back. Its voice was a melody of chaos, the roar of an army charging to war, a song of young child, a cry of a heartbroken widow. "WE ARE LEGION, WE ARE MANY."

The reply from Nemesis was just as loud, "WE ARE NEMESIS, WE DON'T CARE."

Then a fist the size of Fumikage's head swung down, practically smashing its beak in half.

The skin of Nemesis was shadow-black, void-black, it was the unlight, made flesh. But it had form, a humanoid form lined by burning, corrupt, hellish-blue lines of fire that ran railroad across its skin in ways that should have seemed random but somehow formed a blasphemous pattern. The unlight fled from it as much as it clung to it, like an ever-wavering smoke, drifting with every movement it made.

Its body was strong, powerful yet sinewy, like that of a well-trained fighter. Moments ago, when it was Izuku Midoriya, it had been barely five-foot-something but was now easily over eight feet tall.

Nemesis stood not on human feet, but vast claws on digitigrade legs as the world literally blackened and burned around it. Along its forearms, back and shoulders were jagged barbs of blackened unlight, and upon its hands were claws which looked as though they could tear through a sold vault door with ease.

Legion swung back, bright red blood pouring from its now disjointed mouth as the symbols across its body lit up as if encouraged by the violence it was experiencing.

A tail caught its wrist, long and thick and topped with a spear-tip end that twisted with the force of a hydraulic press and simply threw the thing into the fountain, which almost instantly exploded into water and brick.

The two villains who had been stood there must have moved, for they were nowhere to be seen.

Just for a moment, Fumikage saw it in full, vast arms spread to either side, legs apart, tail whipped and raised and bat-like demonic wings curled up and back. Its face caused Fumikage's soul to shudder.

It had a bestial maw, lipless and lined with shark-like teeth. From its head grew two sets of vast horns, one pair which curled up and above, the other curling around and down, like those of ram, both twisting to their deadly sharp points. From its head downward was a great mane of flowing black-green hair. The only thing about it that even suggested it had once been Izuku Midoriya.

For its eyes held no sign of humanity.

They were a deep, foreboding green. Green like the darkest depths of a damned forest. Green like the moss over a tombstone. Green like the panoply of an ancient pagan god. Stark against the glowing, hellish blue fire that fanned from the long scars across its face, its arms, its chest and legs and, yes, even its tail and wings.

They were a burning, hateful, demonic green which glowed with something beyond human. Something almost divine, yet so utterly fallen and gone that they belonged only to the most cursed of all of God's creations.

And yet perhaps out of all of that the most horrific and terrifying thing of all was that around its head, like the image on a church window, was a halo of black light. Like the event horizon of a black hole, like the corona of an eclipse, like the death of the sun.

Fumikage knew, instantly, without any other provocation, that Izuku Midoriya was unholy. The kingdom of heaven was said to exist within all humankind, but in that form, with that power, he was not of that kingdom, but of something that God mourned.

And then, with the sudden beating of vast, burning wings, Nemesis moved.

It was so fast.

Nothing that big should be that fast. The air shimmered around it, though whether it was from the sheer burning heat that it gave off or from the very world itself desperately trying to reject it from the physical realm Fumikage wasn't so sure.

It dived on top of Legion and began simply tearing into its flesh with no poetry to its action, all the while screaming not with a voice, but with the very sound of violence itself. It was a beast, a dragon, a demon made of nightmare and furious hate.

Fumikage wanted to turn away, to run and hide and cower in some dark corner, forgotten and alone. But he couldn't. He couldn't tear his eyes from the profane majesty of the creature, and as much as he wished to flee from it, a part of him, a terrible, cursed part of him, demanded he fall to his knees before it and proclaim his dark allegiance.

It was the part that Tomura had seen within him. The part touched by the hand of Hell itself.

Fumikage finally managed to wrench his eyes from the bloodshed as the two monsters fought.

Dark Shadow was hurt. Its pain had been pulsing through him like it was his own, slow and sharp and stabbing. The quirk-familiar still lay across him, whimpering and panting softly into his shoulder.

"D-Dark Shadow?" Fumikage whispered, as if not daring to make his voice any louder as to draw the attention of Nemesis.

"M-Master. It hurts, my master," It had been a long, long time since he had heard his inner curse talk with such pain, "The- the blue fire, it hurts."

Fumikage looked to the body of his demonic parasite and his eyes went wide with horror. The fire had burned the shadow. The unlight that made up Dark Shadow's form was somehow… gone, as if someone had torn a chunk of flesh from its body. From the cavernous gape in its back flowed with smoking tendrils that seemed to reach out and grasp at one another without truly connecting as his monster's natural form tried and failed to heal itself.

"Thank you, my familiar," Fumikage whispered as the floor under him rocked and shook from the war being fought, "Return to me, I will reward you later."

Dark Shadow said nothing and simply whisked back into Fumikage's body. The pain intensified. It wasn't the first time Dark Shadow had been hurt, and he doubted it would be the last, but Dark Shadow's pain was Fumikage's own. It was part of the nature of their relationship.

He felt as though something had scorched him on the inside. Something deep inside his heart, something at the back of his mind and like a whisper throughout every atom of his being.

His soul was in pain.

Fumikage, however, ignored it. He climbed to his feet and grit his teeth as he did so. Dark Shadow had saved him from being burned alive, but the force of being thrown so far still hurt. His wound was bleeding again, and he held a hand to it tightly. His holy water was gone, thrown to one side and forgotten, not that it would provide much help now.

He looked up as he saw Nemesis slam a fist into Legion's face at a speed faster than his eyes could follow and almost immediately there was an explosion of blue fire that tore through the air, grabbing and clinging to anything it could find.

The very ground under the two beasts shook as their war was raged. With every blow that Nemesis landed upon the monster the stink of burning, cooking meat reached his senses and threatened to snake down Fumikage's throat and forcibly pull up the bile from his stomach.

Legion roared in defiance of its new foe, charging out of the smoke and dust that was quickly filling the air to land skull-shattering blows upon Nemesis. The beast of the unlight, however, replied in swift kind, crushing the bone-shard teeth of the fellow demon and, in almost the same motion, ripping part of its chest away with one bloody strike.

The monster howled in pain, though even as it did so Fumikage could see its wounds already healing, already stitching back together. Something crawled within him as he watched in guilty, horrific fascination.

It was if a thousand threads were reconnecting, pulling its skin back tight over the blood-soaked wounds that it once sported.

And there was already so much blood.

It was coating Legion, coating the ground around it, coating the fists and claws of Nemesis. Blood that stank of burning, sizzling heat and life and death all at once. Blood that curdled the darker parts of Fumikage's heart and sent it racing just a little faster.

He tore his eyes away as he forced his body to move, deciding that the only thing left for him to do was try and make his way back towards the staircase. He couldn't stop Nemesis, but perhaps there was a chance he could still save Aizawa.

He moved through the bushes with all the strength he could manage, his limbs aching and his body screaming for him to stop and let unconsciousness overwhelm him.

He refused to give in to such weakness.

As he made his way out of the bushes he paused.

Tomura and Kurogiri were stood, almost statue-still, watching the two monsters fight. They had moved to just in front of the fountain, avoiding the shattering of the USJ centerpiece altogether. Their eyes were focused on the pair, and just behind them laying in a puddle of his own blood, was Aizawa.

Fumikage gulped softly and again grit his teeth as he made his way as silently as he dared along the skirts of the row of bushes. He could see Tomura's mouth move and he knew he was speaking to his shadow-demon companion, though what Fumikage couldn't hear.

Not over the sound of Legion screaming in pain, anyway.

As he circled around, stepping over pieces of the fountain and the occasional body of a defeated villain, it was obvious, even from Fumikage's perspective, that Legion was already losing the fight.

Nemesis dodged a blow and again tore at Legion's chest with fire and shadowed claw. The huge, hulking beast was forced to step back, and then again, and again, and again. Nemesis pushed forwards faster and with more fury than Legion was prepared to defend.

It not only matched the creature blow for blow, but it was dodging and weaving with an unnatural speed, as if it literally shimmered in and out of reality. The way the world seemed to spark and bleed around it almost reinforced that fact.

More blood flowed, and the more it flowed the more violent, the more intense Nemesis seemed to become. It let out a long screech of battle-joy as it again forced Legion back and back and back heading towards the shipwreck zone.

Legion continued to try and fight but it was failing miserably.

Nemesis threw fire into its face, its chest, its entire body, burning where it tore pieces of it apart, ripping through muscle and sinew and bone.

Fumikage was horrified and captivated in equal measure, his heart racing and his mind reeling at the unholy sight of two demons.

And yet something inside his soul, something that was as corrupt and black as the unlight itself, was enjoying the spectacle. Something was urging him in midnight dark whispers to go forth, to summon his wounded beast to his body and let go.

To join them.

As he reached his teacher he found himself almost stepping past him, towards the fountain, towards the two villains who stood with their backs to him. He could take Shigaraki, it would be easy. He could sneak up behind him and wrap his hands around his neck and-

Breathe.

He huffed the mantra through deep, panicked gulps of hot smoke and dust infused air. Breathe, Fumikage, focus yourself, find your balance, don't let the darkness win.

Once he felt as though he had gathered his temptations back under control, he knelt down and pushed his bloody teacher onto one side. The man had the weight of the dead, something which caused the teenager's heart to almost stutter in his chest.

His face was a mess of clearly shattered bone and blood. Nothing looked right, nothing looked survivable.

No, no Aizawa-Sensei couldn't be dead, he couldn't die, not like this. Izuku's words still lingered in his head, about how they weren't villains, they weren't evil. How they were aiming to be heroes, to be good, to fight against the darkness despite being born into it.

He let the words strengthen his soul and with a newly focused mind Fumikage placed two fingers against the swollen, purple-ringed neck of his teacher and desperately felt for a pulse.

There it was. Faint, distant, dying, but there.

Relief flooded through him, even as he almost fell on top of Aizawa when the ground shook with an earthquake-like roar from Nemesis.

He looked back up just in time to see Legion die.

Legion threw a punch, an almost desperate move despite the power and speed of the attack. Nemesis ducked, turned, grabbed the arm and threw the gigantic mass of blackened muscle over its shoulder, lifting itself from the ground with a mighty flap of vast wings.

The impact was so great that the floor simply gave way under it, cracking and crumbling apart along random lines, causing dust and dirt and blood and the screams of an unnatural creature in pain to fill every inch of the air.

Then the shadow-clad demon dived on top of its prey like a descending hawk, and this time there was no recovery for Legion.

The sound of ripping, tearing, wet flesh rose through the air, though it was drowned by the sound of the monster screaming in an horrific pain. Then there was an almighty crack of bones breaking and the screaming stopped.

The victory cry of Nemesis was like the arcs of lightning at the end of the world, like the howling of the Behemoth of legend, like the cries of a gore-soaked berserker on an ancient corpse-soaked battlefield.

Within one hand it held up a giant, monstrous heart, blood pouring from it and soaking the shadow-demon's arm in a tide of red. Fumikage's mouth hung open as he looked to the crater which it stood within. From around the sides, he could see hundreds, no, thousands of shadows fleeing across the ground.

They were tiny things, slivers of unlight, but all darted and ran and faded to ash as they escaped like rats from a sinking ship.

Then, Nemesis crushed the heart within its vast claw and brought it down only to bite through the organ with the sickening hunger of a starved wolf. It tore and ripped and devoured the heart in an orgy of animalistic violence, and when it was done, it roared again, blood and gore freely flowing from its lipless, jagged maw. Then it to begin devouring the rest of Legion's corpse.

And yet even through the sound of cracking bone and ripping flesh, Fumikage could hear the two villains speak.

"It- It killed Legion!" He heard Tomura Shigaraki call out, his voice shattered and broken. "It's- It's eating it!"

"We still have a chance, my master." Kurogiri urged, his voice a strange, focused tone and pulling Tomura's attention to him. "It's distracted, if we set up a Sol-"

He never finished his sentence. Within the next second a wall of blue fire consumed the air around them, and it was only by the sudden sprouting of void-black portals that it didn't utterly burn the both of them.

Nemesis was upon them.

It rushed through the flame like it was part of it, the tongues of the blue fire licking from its own horrific scars.

"MASTER!" Portals opened under Tomura and for another second, time slowed as he fell back into the inky void.

But Nemesis was over him, huge and terrible with a mouth bleeding fire and body trailing shadow and smoke. Its claw was descending at a speed which no creature could avoid.

Before Tomura fell through the portal, four long, bloody lines had been opened across his body, splitting his skin from left shoulder to his right wrist.

Fumikage blinked and in that time Tomura had vanished from the center of the fountain to halfway between it and the landslide zone.

And he was screaming. His pain filled the air, infecting everything with its fury and shame and hate.

Nemesis, however, only barked a laugh, a sound which was the embodiment of cruelty, spoken through a thousand tones.

Fumikage was dumbstruck and useless. He wanted to retreat, to get away, but how could he? How could he escape this thing, this beast of the apocalypse which stood before him?

Nemesis's vast maw opened again, and again it looked ready to strike at the two villains.

But then, like a gift from above, their salvation arrived.

There was a boom. A boom which sounded not like the ending of the world but the saving of it. A boom which brought light piercing through the darkness which had settled deep into every shadow of the USJ.

"Have no fear, students." The voice was that of a warrior-god, golden and shining, brave and courageous. Hearing it brought instant strength to Fumikage's heart and soul, and he could almost feel the shadow of his curse recoiling at its presence. Suddenly his hands were gripping his teacher tighter and his feet were digging into the dirt. Suddenly he was dragging Aizawa back.

Fumikage glanced up, and from the top of the staircase a figure appeared, and in the suddenly brighter USJ he seemed to almost glow with a divine light. He wore yellow striped pants and a white shirt, but already he was tearing his tie away, already the muscles he bore bulged and flexed ready for war.

"For I am here."

All Might. The Symbol of Peace. The world's number one hero, the strongest man on earth, the most powerful force for good on the planet.

And yet within Fumikage he heard the distant whisper of another title.

He didn't give it thought, because it was put into cruel, hateful words by Nemesis before he could even consider doing so.

"The Fading King."


All Might didn't so much hear the words as much as they cut at his ears like rusting blades, and his teeth grit into a hard, battle-ready grimace.

The air stank of blood and smoke and dust and violence. From his position on the top of the staircase, he had a commanding view of the terror that had been wrought. Bodies of villains were piled up at the base of the staircase where young Fumikage had been dragging a blood-soaked Aizawa back.

The fountain had been demolished, there were two villains, one lying in a bloody heap on the floor as the other hovered protectively over him, Thirteen was almost torn apart from the back, there was a crater by the flood zone with some bloody mess within it, and at the center of it all…

Oh God.

That was the creature which had torn away at young Bakugo's face? That was what had been hiding inside Izuku Midoriya? That was Nemesis?

He felt his old wound grow suddenly pained and tight at the very sight of the dragon-like monster. Everything about it seemed wrong. The way the darkness, blacker than the void, seemed to trail and cling to it. The way it stood, hunched like a beast yet tall like a man, the way the horrible, soul-burning fire lighted along its many interlacing scars. Its wings, its horns, its rending claws and jagged teeth.

The halo of terrible shadow-light that glowed from around its head, like a saint of the profane.

And its eyes, its eyes. There was no humanity to them. No pity, no sorrow, no fear. There was only an incomprehensible hate that he could feel raking at his heart.

All of this was wrong, so wrong.

And it was all his fault.

"DAMN IT!" The slender man's voice rang out through the hall. "DAMN IT, DAMN IT, DAMN IT!"

"Master Tomura, we must leave, there is no victory to be found here." The shadow-man spoke in a swift, almost hushed tone. "You're hurt, and I cannot allow you to die."

"FUCK YOU." Tomura screamed, though not at All Might but at Nemesis. Even in the pain he was clearly in, the utter hate which fueled him continued to push him forwards. "You traitor! You disgusting traitor! You turned against us, your brothers and sisters, your own kindred!"

Nemesis turned its horned head, though it gave Tomura nothing more than a dismissive snarl.

As the shadow took them both, Tomura continued to scream out, "We'll kill you! We'll kill you all! The End of Days is coming, and I swear on my Lord and my Father I will KILL YOU ALL! ORA PRO VOBIS SATANI!"

And with that, his hateful menace still echoing through the USJ, Tomura Shigaraki and Kurogiri vanished into shadow and void.

Nemesis huffed again and then turned back slowly to look at Fumikage. It seemed to pause for only a split-second before grinning. "Filthy sinner."

Nemesis moved, but so did All Might.

Like a thought, like a ray of sunshine piercing darkened cloud, it took less than a heartbeat for him to appear in front of Fumikage, shielding the boy with his huge body and grabbing the fists of the monster before they could continue to reap their bloody harvest.

The second his hands touched the burning shadow-skin of the beast he felt fire not just scorch his skin but burn through his entire bloodstream, rushing to every part of his body as if he had touched something truly damned and its rotting curse was infecting him.

But he held it back. Because he was a hero dammit and he would not let this beast hurt anyone.

He could see it was hurt already. Blood was pouring from the wounds that something else, perhaps what had been in the crater, had inflicted upon it. Wounds that should have brought any other being to its knees. Clearly, however, they did not bother Nemesis.

The monster was taller than he was, by an entire head, and as he gripped it with a ground-breaking hold he could smell the blood and fire pouring from it.

And those eyes. Those eyes which lacked anything that resembled the divine touch. The eyes of a truly godless creature, or perhaps worse, eyes that knew of an almighty being and yet had spat upon its feet.

All Might poured his strength into his limbs and began, with a truly herculean effort, pushing Nemesis back.

"YOUNG TOKOYAMI!" He roared, his voice rising above his fear, above the unholy terror that Nemesis radiated, "GO! NOW! SAVE AIZAWA, SAVE YOURSELF!"

"A-All Might." The boy replied from behind him, his voice heavy and pained from his many injuries, "You need to-"

"GO!" The huge man roared to the face of Nemesis. He heard Fumikage suddenly scurry behind him and taking the cue he suddenly turned his body, throwing himself to one side, causing Nemesis to twist erratically and follow him in the fluid movement.

Already his veteran warrior's combat-drenched mind was rushing through every opening, every option, every attack pattern he could launch at the beast.

And yet all the while two thoughts lingered, anchoring everything to a horrible reality.

This was Izuku Midoriya.

This was a demon.

The two facts clashed and warred and battled within his heart. How could young Midoriya be this? How could something so dark, so terrible, so instinctively wicked exist upon the earth? And how could it be within the body of one of the kindest, most selfless children he'd ever met?

The leap should have cleared half the USJ in an instant, but Nemesis followed him as easily as a lion follows a fleeing wildebeest.

The creature caught his leg and, as the fabric burned in its grasp, it turned and flung him into the floor. All Might was not so slow as Legion had been, and turned it into a sudden roll, springing up and looking back to the monster.

A fist collided with his jaw that almost tore it right from his face. His skin burned and sizzled from the impact and the pain sent shockwaves through his skull. But he turned back half on instinct half on his own intention, dodging another blow and narrowly avoiding a claw that would have carved the ribs from his chest.

It was relentless. Again and again and again, Nemesis roared into the attack, a mixture of animalistic claws and swinging fists and even the spinning use of its barbed tail. The assault was like few All Might had ever faced, the speed and ferocity coupled with the sheer white-hot fire it wielded was almost unbreakable.

All Might barely held his ground, every inch of his own power being pushed further and further to keep Nemesis from overwhelming him.

"Izuku! This isn't you!" He cried out as blood began coating his cheek, his chest and his own hands. Limbs were burning from the effort of simply keeping up with the demon, but he had yet to truly unleash an attack of his own. How could he? Buried under the shadow-burning skin of this monster was his student, a boy who had tried so hard to control this evil, a boy who had given his all into being good, into being a hero.

Maybe there was a chance he could still pull it back.

"I know you're in there! You can stop this madness! You can stop your quirk!"

"HA!" The beast barked fire and smoke into his face, its grin cracking wide and terrible. "Foolish old man! We are Izuku Midoriya. We are Nemesis. We are the punishment of the sinful! We are SHADOW AND FIRE!"

It opened its mouth wide and there was a split second where All Might's own darkened eyes widened in horror before he dived to the floor. The air above his head became ignited with blue flame so hot he felt the shirt on his back peeling and burning away.

He was up and back in a second, but all it took was a second's respite from the fight for every part of him to groan and scream in pain. This fight was pulling everything he had from him, from One For All. He had come in with what he thought would be a solid hour's worth of power left. He had burned through it in less than ten minutes.

And Nemesis just would not stop attacking.

It was as if it was fueled by some endless energy from which it drew its fire, its hatred of everything it looked upon. Some unholy power drawn from the black depths of hades. It seemed limitless and all consuming.

And increasingly All Might was realizing the dawning horror that told him it would only stop when it was dead.

It feinted suddenly, diving to one side and smashing All Might square in his old injury. Blood spurted from between clenched teeth and for a moment the man saw only blinding stars in his vision. The beast laughed at his pain and a pair of burning hands clamped around his neck, lifting him up suddenly as the air was squeezed out of his throat.

"Look at you, Fading King," Nemesis sneered out, its malice almost as infectious as a maligned virus, "How long do you have left until your body gives out? How much blood can you shed before your life finally drains away?" Its sneer turned into a growl, "We will devour you, and make you pay for the sins of your soul."

All Might felt the hate pour off it in droves as he desperately tried to pull its claws from around his throat. It was almost threatening his own heart, his own mind, his own soul. The rage it held was crawling into his brain and telling him to unleash himself upon his enemy, beat it, destroy it, kill it.

And then the air was filled with fire.

But it wasn't the brilliant blue flame that Nemesis had poured across the USJ. It was bright red, life and anger and furious righteousness, the rage of the light against the curse of the dark.

The blast hit Nemesis square in the side of the head, throwing the demon down within a heartbeat. All Might fell and let out a strangled cry as a hand went to his blood-soaked throat. The skin had simply melted away, burning and peeling like paper. He could barely take a breath and inside he knew that, given only a handful of seconds more, Nemesis would have killed him.

He turned dark eyes to see who his savior had been, and the moment he did his stomach almost dropped away.

It was Katsuki Bakugo.

The boy was panting, though not from injury or pain. His skin was pale to the point of looking sick, his hands outstretched and his eyes wide. He was terrified and yet he was standing there, teeth clenched in a furious, horrified grimace as smoke faded from his shaking palms. His clothes were marked with dirt and ugly blotches of black soot.

Nemesis was already on its feet, and yet the moment it turned its vast horned head towards the boy it was hit again from behind.

This time it was not fire, but a huge wave of ice that rushed forward, drowning out everything before it and consuming the beast like a cocoon. All Might knew that ice, and he knew somewhere behind it was Shoto Todoroki.

Already, however, the ice was melting, and from within he could hear the screaming of hell itself brought to earth, he could feel the ground rocking as the trapped monster pounded relentlessly at its cage.

"All Might, Sir!" He turned again to see Hanta Sero running from Katsuki's direction to his side, pulling tape from his elbows as he did so. He too was dirty and worn, his costume wrapped in some places with his own tape. "Sir, are you okay?"

"FUCK YOU!" Katsuki was screaming hysterically at the ice even as it cracked and broke and then was instantly re-formed by Shoto, who was slowly circling around, his hand up and his face etched with the intense focus of his task. "FUCK YOU, YOU INHUMAN BASTARD FUCK YOU!"

"Sir? Sir?" Hanta panted. He too was pale with fear, but not nearly so much as the almost fear-mad Katsuki.

He had no idea how they'd managed to make their way through the fire and growing smoke, nor through the villains who young Iida had told him had infested the USJ zones. They were brave, all of them, impossibly so for such young ages. But he was their teacher, and he couldn't let them fight his battles.

"What are you doing here? You need to get out, now!" All Might managed to croak out, one blood-soaked hand around his throat. "I can handle young Midoriya-"

"Sir, with all due respect, that's not Midoriya, not anymore," Hanta was already wrapping tape around his wounds, without All Might even asking him for the help.

He couldn't let them get involved.

"I can't keep him contained forever," Shoto shouted over the din of the screaming demon trapped in the ice cocoon as he edged towards his teacher, "All Might, if you can-"

"Children, please." The man rose to his feet, taking his bloody hand from his skinless throat and once again gathering his power to his chest. "You need to leave, now. I will deal with this."

His heart was pounding with the raw exertion of keeping his body standing, but he couldn't stop now. He had to stop Izuku, he had to stop Nemesis.

"I'll bring him round, trust me in, as your teacher and a hero." He raised a fist and pounded it to his bloody chest as he looked to the boys. "It'll be fine, because I am here."

"P-Please, sir." A new voice joined them, he turned again to see Hitoshi limping towards him.

His heart almost stopped beating.

The boy was a wreck. A busted lip, a bloody eye, a clearly broken leg and who knew how many more injuries. And yet his gaze was the most terrible of all. It was a fatalistic, thousand-yard stare that spoke more than words ever could. "Sir, you know you can't talk him round. You have to stop him."

The word hammered into All Might's heart, into his very soul. He knew exactly what stop him meant. He didn't want to think it, he didn't even want to consider it, but he and Hitoshi now shared something. They had both looked into the eyes of the beast.

They knew how Nemesis was stopped.

There was a sudden explosion, louder than the others, and the ice simply tore apart at the seams. A gigantic ball of blue flame rushed from the cocoon, consuming everything in its path.

But the boys and All Might where no longer there.

Within a heartbeat, the pro had acted, rushing from his point and grabbing every one of them before they could even process they were being moved. He had taken them all out of the range of the burning ball of fire, closer to the fountain where the water still managed to hold off the ever-growing flames.

Rising like a demon from hell itself, Nemesis stood tall once more. It roared, holding out its arms and stretching its vast wingspan to the full. The blue fire responded, intensifying suddenly around it like a baying, cheering crowd.

All Might knew what he had to do.

"Boys, go, now." He ordered, his voice lower, more serious and suddenly full of a terrible sorrow. "Go back to the top of the staircase, help who you can. I'll… I'll stop Nemesis."

The very use of the demon's name caused a morbid dread to run through the teenagers.

He stood and turned back to the monster, which was already moving towards him at a frightening speed.

All Might, however, was done holding back.

He dived forwards, rushing into its attack with a brutal intent and, for the first time in their fight, he went on the offensive. His fist smashed into the face of Nemesis like a warhead hitting a bunker. The blow caused the beast to scream in shock, but All Might wasn't done. He followed it up with another, and another, and another.

Nemesis finally caught its footing and fought back, and now, truly, the fight was on.

The teenagers watched in awe struck shock as the two battled. It was as if they were witnessing the war of two demi-gods of ancient myth, one a fallen hero, consumed by unlight and terror and all devouring flame, the other a bastion of righteous fury, of the goodness of mankind's spirit manifest.

Their blows rocked the earth they stood on, it should have shattered bone and ruined flesh, and indeed they did. The injuries on both the warriors grew more and more, blood flowed from them both through gritted teeth and open wounds. Nemesis, however, didn't slow down for a second, as if it didn't even feel the pain that should be ruining it.

The dragon-like demon poured itself at its human opponent, its assault at a speed which should have torn its enemy apart. A flurry of fire and claw and fist and teeth and tail. An unstoppable monster of rage and unending hate.

But All Might was no longer purely on the defense. He too poured himself into every attack, his fists flying faster than any eye could hope to follow. Blood flowed from him and should have sapped his strength, but there was a fire within his soul, a fire which had been passed down to him like a torch. Not the all-consuming blue which Nemesis wielded, but a bright light, a guiding light, a light of hope and strength and power.

A light that guided every blow, every strike, he let it shine from his glowing blue gaze as he grit his teeth and pushed against the monstrosity before him. Golden lightning crackled around him, the very manifestation of his overwhelming strength, of the power he wielded, of the quirk which he'd used to save the lives of millions.

The difference of skill was not lost on their audience. Nemesis was pure wrath and nothing more, a furious, unrelenting assault with no regard for its own survival which would have torn through a lesser man's defense.

But All Might was All Might. The number one hero in the world. His raw battle experience was his shield, his rational tactical mind his sword. He was pounding the wounded parts of Nemesis, maximizing the pain and damage inflicted with each blow while minimizing his own.

Nemesis took one step back, and the fight was decided.

The beast screamed and roared at continued to rain fire and hell upon All Might, but it was already over.

"HOW DARE YOU DO THIS TO YOUNG MIDORIYA." All Might's furious roar left his bloody lips. The hate he felt for this monster, for this thing which had taken Izuku was almost overwhelming and yet as he battled he did not push it down, instead he channeled it through his body, into his fists, into the enormous force he needed to push himself beyond his limits, "HOW DARE YOU DO THIS TO A STUDENT OF MINE! YOU MONSTER! YOU DEMON!"

"WE-"

"NO!" All Might's bellow downed out the beast, "YOU ARE NOT IZUKU MIDORIYA, YOU ARE AN ABOMINATION! AND YOU," One mighty blow cracked Nemesis's jaw from below, launching it up, "ARE," All Might was there in a less than a second, jumping up and holding two linked fists above his head, "DONE."

His fists came down and Nemesis broke into the ground with such force that the entire floor of the USJ simply gave up the fight and fell away, raising to form a vast crater which stretched from the impact site in the center of the arena to every corner of the dome.

The thunderclap-like noise broke whatever windows were left, including those of the storm zone and the wind and rain trapped there was released like a howling spirit from a bottle. It was nothing short of a miracle that the entire USJ did not simply fall away there and then, even as the walls around it crumbled and many broke down entirely, leaving vast openings in the concrete and steel.

All Might landed with a great thud with rock and stone flying from his impact.

He breathed and stood to his feet. It was over. He'd won.

The silence that settled after was, for lack of a better term, deafening.

The air was filled with the debris of battle and the smoke from the still burning fires. From where he knelt, All Might coughed and choked. His form was already melting away, but he didn't care. He estimated, through his pain-addled brain, that he had at least a few minutes until the dust settled and the students could see him openly.

He wasn't so sure he cared about that anymore.

On shaking legs, he made his way forwards through the ruin, over the crumbling, disjointed rock and stone to the center of the crater he had made.

And as he hobbled forwards he could feel the wet, warm blood flowing from the numerous wounds that covered his body. His old wound had been brutally reopened, he was missing most of the skin on his chest, his ribs were broken inside his paper-thin body and he was sure he was missing some teeth. His throat and arms burned from where the skin had simply sizzled away, though incredibly the tape Hanta had applied had remained.

But that didn't matter.

Another few steps forward, he could hear the blood dripping from his fingers to the floor.

A body appeared in the murk of fire-smoke and dust.

A small, frail looking body. A body that stank of blood and fire. A body not pale but black and purple and red.

There was so much red.

Toshinori fell to his knees beside him. The boy was laying still, too still. His eyes were open and glazed and almost colorless.

They saw nothing.

All Might wept cold, bitter tears even as, somewhere in the far distance, he heard the sound of shouting, of fellow heroes arriving, of sirens and help and hope.

He managed, though how he didn't know, to take off his own shirt, what remained of it, and draped it over Izuku's lower half. Through crimson teeth, he whispered, "I'm so… so sorry… my boy."

That was how the other heroes found him. A bloody, broken man, crying over the shattered body of Izuku Midoriya.


Like I said dear readers, USJ is when shit starts flying off the goddamn rails.

So just some quick notes here. Firstly, I'm sad to announce now that USJ is wrapped, I'm going on month long break to catch up on chapters and build up another backlog of chapters to work with.

Another thing is that when I do return, I'm going to change the update times to once every 3 weeks at 7 o'clock (still on Fridays). I know, I'm very sorry to be doing this and I know you're all mad, but honestly keeping up the work rate for this has been... hard, especially lately. Having an easier update schedule should help not only keep chapters updating for longer (So less month long breaks!) it'll also take some pressure off myself and help my creative process.

Anyway, His Father's Son will reupdate on November 16th. Until then, well, I'm sure you guys can hang off the edge of this cliff just fine, right? Right.

Peace out my dudes.