Shahryar - Monoma is... well, doing his best :v
(***)
"Armageddon… is still in its tomb?" Midoriya blinks at Mastermind, who just finished relaying the message . "What the hell?"
"You're asking me?" Yoshihiro is clearly displeased by it. "Look, I know how good I am. Despite that, I also know that if you don't have an answer to the question, then neither do I. So I'm going to consider that question a rhetorical one and promptly ignore you until you go to sleep."
"Oh, just shut the fuck up for a moment." Revenant loses composure for a second. Something's… something's missing in the big picture.
He is almost certain that he'd realize it instantly if his brain wasn't operating on fumes. Then again, it's better for him to make a bad decision now than to make no decision while it mattered, especially during a crisis of this magnitude.
He trusts himself to not make the bad decisions be disastrously bad.
The whole rampage of Armageddon makes absolutely no sense from neither tactical nor strategic point of view. From a tactical point of view it's the equivalent of using a nuke to finish a bar brawl. From strategic, well.
It was the same thing that stopped Re-Destro and Overhaul from releasing it in the past.
There is no point in inheriting a barren wasteland. Unleashing Armageddon on Japan would allow you to terrify the survivors into compliance, but this would last only as long as the Armageddon's existence. Eventually some insurgency group would take it down, and then everyone would rise against you.
Not to mention the fact that fear was a… limited tool. Who would show initiative in supporting such a government? Some people, yes. But the majority would stick into doing the bare minimum to survive.
You could obtain slaves, but not willing supporters.
And that's without mentioning dozens of million of civilian casualties. At this point even Overhaul said no. That man saw no issue with murdering people, but even he had to draw a line somewhere.
But Armageddon clearly showed no intention of crossing over to the mainland. Izuku at this point arrived at the same conclusion that Saiko Intelli did about two hours ago - that its swiftness of advance could only be explained with a warp quirk.
If it was precise enough to allow Armageddon to board the warships forming the naval blockade, why wasn't it used to land its copies in, say, central Tokyo? Range? 3rd Escort Flotilla was decimated despite being further from Shikoku than the length of the channel between it and the mainland.
Unless…
It can't be, right?
Izuku might be making a bad decision. But it's better than the alternative.
"Mastermind, do you remember our… hypothetical talk, the one that happened… a day before the Revival Celebration?" Izuku asks. With his brain, there is just no way that Rai forgot about something, especially as important as this. "I think that it's the time to initiate the third variant of the Containment plan."
Mastermind's eyes glow for a moment, the look on his face switching to that of disbelief.
"You don't think that…"
"Apocrypha confirmed that most of the strike force sent to the Tomb was temporarily eliminated." Izuku replies. "This means heavy resistance encountered in the facility. But Blackwing said nothing about the details of it. Do you want to bet that it's because the nature of said resistance was so ridiculous that he decided to find an explanation before reporting it?"
His eyes glow for a moment again, before Mastermind settles up on a decision.
"I'll review the data right now." He says. "I hope it's just your lack of sleep talking, but… it feels oddly coherent for ramblings of a madman. If you're right…"
"... then our war just got a whole lot more complicated." Izuku cuts in dryly. "Get to it. Time is of the essence."
What are the chances of Blackwing encountering dead people in the Tomb?
(***)
Fumikage Tokoyami decided to limit themself to helping Electric and Dark Crystal go down the elevator shaft. He was in no shape for fighting.
Thankfully, Dark Crystal (also, Sama Suzume) was a former Number 44 Hero. Now that she was an exalted, she became even more dangerous, and while her quirk didn't react to the procedure as strongly as Dark Shadow, the results were there.
Thankfully for them, the resistance at the power plant level was minimal when compared to what was waiting for them at the laboratory level.
If anything, Tokoyami found it regretful that Ragdoll was no longer with them. She would enjoy seeing Dark Crystal's energy blade vivisect Magne by slashing her open from left shoulder to right waist.
Jirou would have enjoyed seeing it as well.
(Magne was utterly useless against beings that lacked gender, and she never amounted to much to begin with, Entropy only kept her around because they were equals in malevolence and had equally paltry Freudian excuses for it, in Tokoyami's opinion. Although, to be honest, Entropy might have simply liked to have someone to talk fashion with.)
Neither Mustard nor Moonfish in sight. The latter was executed not long after being arrested during the Training Camp Massacre (he was expendable to begin with), so maybe there was some time limit on resurrection. Mustard, if resurrected, would probably just shoot himself again.
Who was left?
Geten? No point in deploying him in a place that was this dry. His loyalty was also unpredictable, especially with the remnants of the MLA working for Midoriya. There was a reason why the non-LoV enemies encountered thus far didn't include anyone from the Meta-Liberation Army.
Nine and his crew were suspected to be Re-Destro's moles within the League. Another group out of the picture.
Aside from the leaders of the old PLF themselves, who were too dangerous for even the Top Heroes to half-ass their fights, their lieutenants were mostly arrested rather than killed. Hence, Ragdoll having to battle Beast, but not Bearhead and Curator, for example.
The first League was much smaller, and aside from several high ranking villains (that were either already slain by Tokoyami's group or were ruled as improbable to show), their main assets lay in noumus.
And big thinkers. But Doctor Garaki (with his mad science), Midoriya (with his strategic expertise) and Overhaul (with his mad science) were unlikely to show. Garaki was useless at this junction, Midoriya was still alive (death seemed to be a prerequisite to show up again, oddly enough) and Overhaul already vetoed Armageddon's release once.
That was pretty much all notable names that they could encounter in this location.
Except for one.
Kurogiri was standing right next to Armageddon's original body, preparing to open another warpgate. He barely had the time to move before Dark Crystal's dark ray hit him from above after bouncing off one of her remotely-controlled crystals. Kurogiri's body bent forward, just in time for Tokoyami to get to him through the floor.
The shadows grew to life, piercing through Kurogiri's chest, spreading through his body akin to branches of a tree… before growing sharp. The warp gate user was torn into shreds from the inside during the next three seconds.
Electric, in the meantime, electrocuted Armageddon, interrupting his attempt to clone himself again. Dark Crystal was about to murder the original together, before Tokoyami shout at her to stop.
His experience in command grew during the last few years. He had something else in mind.
It was done.
It was time to report that to Midoriya, and find them all some goddamn answers.
(***)
"Great." Midoriya announces as dryly as humanly possible. "Armageddon is down. Hip hip hooray."
"I expected you to be slightly happier about that." Mastermind pauses looking through his newest data stack, the glow in his eyes vanishing for a moment. "Like, maybe not 'god, it's time to go to sleep' level happy, but…"
"Rai, I get that you're a fitness fanatic with a sleep schedule planned for a month in advance for maximum productivity and health benefits…" Izuku retorts angrily. "... not to mention constantly drinking smoothies made from stuff from organic farming and having your own goddamn dietician, only eating meat while celebrating some achievement and rarely drinking some light beer… but do us all a favor and can it about my own unhealthy habits, alright?"
"I'm all about 'natural means healthy' when humans are involved." Mastermind shrugs. "Eating junk food would make me feel like a hypocrite, wouldn't it?"
Izuku refuses to be provoked into that argument. He is way too tired to go into it right now.
"I'm very scarce about celebrations because the government just rendered Shikoku uninhabitable for at least the next five to six years." Midoriya decides to return to the subject. "That's the estimated amount of time until the fallout radiation depletes to 'not deadly' levels."
"Make it fifteen to twenty." Mastermind cuts in. When Izuku looks at him questioningly, he decides to add. "The radiation going down is one thing, making the people trust the 'it's safe now' announcement is another thing altogether. Honestly, seeing the amount of destruction and the current level of governmental funding left for the restoration purposes I wouldn't be surprised if Shikoku was abandoned entirely. Or, perhaps, officially converted into a natural preserve slash tourist attraction."
Right. Like isle-sized Chernobyl, except with a 'fame' of being a location of the history's one and only true zombie apocalypse.
Trips with a guide through the location of heroic last stands, evacuation centers and whatnot. Huh.
Izuku forgot to take into account stuff such as the number of power plants, water treatment plants, hospitals and so on caught in the nuclear blasts. No way that the government in its current state can genuinely hope to finance restoration efforts, even once the radiation goes down and the zombies die out.
"Well, great." Izuku sighs. "Thank you for making my mood even worse." Mastermind, that little shit, gives him a thumbs-up gesture. "The fact that the nuclear bombardment was unavoidable and possibly the only way to deplete the hordes of Armageddon' zombies, while buying time to evacuate a few dozen thousand more people, changes little in my generalized hatred for the result."
"Hating something is pointless, and dumb and pretty virgin." Mastermind states. "Hate everything that's different from you, that's the chad's way of doing things."
"... I hate the fact that I somehow infected you with old memes." Izuku groans. "I'm going to find the person responsible for this mess and nail their head to my fucking wall. In the meantime, we're gonna continue seeing the government annihilate the rest of Shikoku, because we have no way of telling them that the original Armageddon is dead. What do you think are the chances of Mindscape realizing it and Mera using the rest of the Sword of Damocles missiles to kill as many clones as possible?"
"Above 80%." Mastermind replies after a short while of glowing eyes. "Depends on how many of those are left."
"Not enough." Midoriya replies. "I expect them to have launched so many missiles that they have enough left for maybe one large salvo." Mastermind stares at him. "What?"
"How the hell do you know that?" Mastermind asks, still staring at him. "Look, I get that your super secret source is very high, but this is getting downright ridiculous. How do you know how many missiles they have? Is there even a state secret that you don't know?"
"You have no idea." Izuku chuckles. Then he decides to stop himself, Mastermind is clearly trying to take advantage of his lack of sleep to make him say too much. "Good news is that the Sword of Damocles has been almost neutralized, with a solid chance of being entirely neutralized. That actually means that we're significantly ahead of schedule, even if I hate the way it happened."
"It's all…" Mastermind decides to give up his little probing attempt. "... a question of who the hell released it."
Yeah. And Izuku is almost certain of the identity of the person in question. He just hopes he's wrong about it.
(***)
Thirty minutes later Mastermind confirms that the Sword of Damocles was unleashed for the last time. This time, it was just the First Stage. The Armageddon's legions were quickly losing cohesiveness under the attacks, although the amount of casualties continued to climb fast.
Remaining Armageddon drones changed tactics. Instead of mass deployment they began to divide into small groups, trying to sweep through the remaining population centers while not being large enough to warrant a nuke being dropped on them.
The naval evacuation was going to be resumed soon. The government was acting slowly on that, fearing a trap. ⅔ of the Maritime Self Defense Force was practically speaking annihilated, it was already a massive and potentially irrecoverable disaster for the Self Defense Force as a whole. The concept of losing the last Escort Flotilla was…
Yeah, no one wanted to be the one responsible once the scapegoat hunt was going to commence.
(***)
Cloud was a perfectionist when teleportation was involved. To say it simply, she nailed it perfectly.
The warpgate opened up under the Oka Mariner's deck, startling Sirius. Who just happened to be in the same room when the kids started popping up from a black cloud.
"Cloud, you're going to give me a heart attack one day." The sidekick says with a (slight) mockery of anger in her voice. The upper end of the cloud reshapes in vaguely humanoid shape and shrugs. "Don't you shrug me! Wait, why are you here?"
Decay - who just emerged from the warpage - shrugs. Sirius promptly flips him the bird.
"Ugh, there were complications." Tenko decides to elaborate. "I'm going to need a word with the captain."
"Selkie's out in town, making sure that we're restocked before the trip." Sirius replies, while bowing her head lightly towards Ibara who replies in kind (before deciding to focus on shepherding the kids before they set the ship aflame). "Everyone's going absolutely insane over Shikoku, so getting supplies is… time consuming."
Tenko groans.
"Before you have any dumb questions, it wasn't us." He says.
"I know it wasn't you." Sirius replies. "Mostly because I know that your wife would be pissed off at you, and you would rather fistfight All for One without a quirk than make her angry at you. So, I'm going to assume that you and the PLF as a whole are clear, though I have to admit that no longer having to work for it makes me happy. What's the timetable for the remaining groups?"
"Should be here in a few hours." Decay replies. "But with all the chaos of the nationwide emergency I prefer to be paranoid. So, I considered asking Oka Mariner to set sail right now, picking up Juggernaut's group from his fishing boat. After, probably, making him pick up Fireline's group off the coast."
"I'll call Selkie right away." Sirius replies. "But I'm going to get you one or two crewmembers to help… control the chaos, so to speak, before that."
Kids are clearly excited by their brush with the heroes AND their soon to be sea trip to Verize. It shows.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Decays sighs. Sirius doesn't comment on how he keeps playing the hard-to-get when kids are involved despite being a massive softie for them. "Cloud, warp me back to Overlook. I need to say goodbye to someone."
He hopes that they'll get to meet once more, once Midoriya gets Eri back and manages to turn the country into post-apocalyptic wilderness (it was more of a post-apocalyptic dystopia right now, for a given value of apocalyptic, and Tenko Shimura would consider that particular change to be an improvement), but… you never know.
(***)
Forty minutes later, Tokoyami emerged from the warpgate and stood before almost all the big names of the PLF. Including even Yaoyorozu, who was woken up from her quick nap to be there.
"Tokoyami." Midoriya sat in the middle of the group. "Care to elaborate why you brought Armageddon with you to the Overlook? Incapacitated, yes, and we have a secure cell with air filtering, but it's still rather… extreme. And not exactly what I ordered you to do."
Fumikage Tokoyami, deep enough, was always a bit of a drama queen. A dark, goth drama queen, but still.
Instead of using words, they extended their body towards the table in front of them… and began to unload what they were carrying within them the whole time.
Heads.
Magne, Kurogiri, Muscular, Dabi, Beast, Eclipse, Purity. Each of them causes different reactions in different people.
Shocked gasps, stares of horror and disbelief and worried frowns (that one mostly from Midoriya) fill the room..
Magne provokes the look of murder and hatred from Jirou, one that would make most people freeze in horror - that was some terrifying intimidation factor. Kouta Izumi's reaction to Mandalay's murderer is better, but not due to to lack of hatred, but due to him being a sane political terrorist rather than a sadistic serial killer.
Reaction to Kurogiri is… scarce. Except for a flinch of slight emotional pain from Decay and Midoriya. Cloud is unreadable, but it probably hurt her as well.
Muscular was hated by Kouta Izumi the most, true. Yaoyorozu, oddly enough, had a slight hateful flinch on her face. She might have given in to villainy and loved it, but it brought back memories. She saw him beat Mashirao Ojiro to death in front of her during the Training Camp Massacre… and didn't forget that sight.
To describe the look on Shoto Todoroki's face when Dabi's head was unearthed was a folly that Tokoyami wouldn't even attempt to do. The sheer degree of pure, unadulterated hatred would make their heart stop if they still had one.
Beast, oddly enough, barely provokes a reaction. It's an old story. The ISP lieutenants might have had loyalty issues, but Rini came with Red Fang only. And Red Fang was loyal to Lady Murder utterly and completely.
Eclipse was shocked by seeing her mother's head, that's for sure. It was opening an old wound. Their mutual relationship was… complicated.
Purity, in the meantime… Mastermind, for the first time in a long while, completely froze, merely staring at the head, empty face.
The Paranormal Liberation Front of modernity was a bunch of people thought dead deciding to prove to the world that they were still around. To see the same thing happen to them was… unexpected.
"Well, fuck." Izuku says while raising his hand to cut the soon-to-be chaos short. "I assume you brought us some answers."
"We did." Tokoyami replies grimly. "You won't like them."
"Wow, what a surprise." Izuku replies dryly. "Shoot it."
"Before the facility met an untimely demise, it was housing not just Armageddon but also a Specialist Noumu under the codename of Backup." Tokoyami replies. "It appears that this noumu was supposed to 'preserve' quirks of dead people."
"Are you fucking kidding me right now?" Izuku, uncharacteristically for himself, looks actually angry. And very, very underslept. "That was Garaki's solution?"
Blackwing shrugs.
"Backup is capable, through some variant of Twice's copying quirk, maybe a more literal cloning quirk, to create a physically existing copy of a person currently dead." They decide to focus on narrating their findings. "Good news, only a single copy can exist at once and the original has to be dead. What's more, the copies can only live for up to five days. They also do not accumulate knowledge or skills. Every subsequent copy doesn't have the memories of previous copies, merely those of their originals. Also, before you ask, All for One died before Backup was created."
Personally speaking, Midoriya admires the foresight. Even if you exclude the combat applications, the possibilities were almost endless. If all that Backup needed was something relatively simple, like blood…
Thank God that Backup most likely wasn't online while All for One was alive. But Izuku was almost certain that he ordered his creation, and probably contributed some metaquirks to shape it properly (even if Aiko clearly wasn't involved, judging from the shock on her face).
The only question was whether All for One could steal quirks permanently from the clones. If he could… Backup was most likely a threat equal to Armageddon. A final ascension of the old demon lord.
He only managed to get a single quirk of the old Top Heroes during the war. And honestly, Yoroi Muusha's Hammerspace Arsenal was enough of a problem on its own, especially when applied to some noumus.
Wait. Was it how Garaki copied quirks? Perhaps the copies could have their quirk stolen, but they were inferior to the original?
What a terrifying thought.
Thankfully, All for One is out of the picture.
"So, whoever got that Backup noumu can basically continue spawning the members of the original Paranormal Liberation Front, and we don't know how many of them are 'connected' to it." Midoriya sighs. He looks tired more than angry at this point. "This is just brilliant. Anything more?"
"Dark Crystal recovered the recordings from the camera in front of the facility." Tokoyami replies. "But I'm going to need you to make sense of them."
"Give them to me." Mei wakes up. "We aren't putting anything that could potentially be tampered into our network without double-checking it properly."
Good thinking.
She finds no viruses in it.
Then she plays it on the screen in front of them. When a figure shows up approaching the Tomb's gates, Izuku immediately realizes why Tokoyami needed someone to figure this out for him.
"Nejire Hadou?!" Yaoyorozu speaks loudly, saying the words that others murmur in the background. "What the hell…" Yeah, the hair alone is unmistakable.
Izuku laughs. It's the laughter distinctly devoid of happiness. Eyes, naturally, drift towards him.
"I finally realized why Entropy acted so illogically after her initial clash with the heroes during Haiboro Woods." Izuku says dryly, and to no one in particular, his eyes staring into space. "Why didn't she try to rejoin what was left of the League, and instead wandered through the woods until Lemillion found her. Garaki gave her several quirks, and I never learned of the full list."
"What?" Yaoyorozu asks, still staring at him.
"It must have been some delayed effect thing." Izuku continues speaking. "Lemillion would have noticed it otherwise. Some sort of mental connection thing, it probably 'fired' when Entropy died. The rest was just a slow change, unnoticeable even to Hadou herself, until one day… a switch was flipped."
"Midoriya, speak clearly." Yaoyorozu lost her patience. "What do you mean?"
"Mind transfer quirk, Yaomomo." Midoriya finally looks back at her. "This isn't Nejire Hadou. This is Hana Shimura wearing Nejire Hadou's face. And she just killed more than two million people just to tell me that she's back in the game."
(***)
Elsewhere
It wasn't easy to make all of her sidekicks get lost and leave her alone, without yelling at them. And while keeping up the act. But eventually, she succeeded.
"Oh, Izuku." Nejire Hadou sighs, while leaning back on her chair. In her hands, an old family photo of theirs that she's looking at, while smiling faintly. "I wonder if you pieced it up already. But you probably did. You were always the smartest one."
Losing Armageddon so early was unexpected. She planned for the PLF' strike force to kill it, thus allowing Backup to create another copy of it right off the bat. But… It was merely a small setback.
Kurogiri already warped several clones into safety. Not enough to cause another end of days, but… just enough to be useful assets. She was ready.
Your move, Revenant.
Time since the activation of Armageddon: 11h
Est. number of civilian casualties: 2 560 000
Est. number of uninfected inhabitants of Shikoku: 500 000
Est. number of evacuated civilians: 1 000 000
Sword of Damocles: 100% Depleted
Naval Blockade Status:
1st. Escort Flotilla - Annihilated
2nd Escort Flotilla - Recalled
3rd Escort Flotilla - Annihilated
Ground Forces Status:
JGSDF 14th Division - Annihilated
JGSDF 6th Engineering Brigade - Annihilated
Shikoku Pro-Heroes: Annihilated
Shikoku Police Force: Annihilated
Evacuation Status:
Naval: Resumed
Ground: Cancelled
Air: Ongoing
