Chapter 10

For a split-second they had been in the nothingness between the worlds.

When they reappered, Izuku and the others realized that they were back where it all had started.

The hall in the H.C.P-Building in the area of Kyoto in their own reality where the Gateway was placed.

It had worked.

As they realized nearly instantly however, the situation was far from ideal.

Before them in the room were not only the other Heroes, but also members of the League of Villains.

Standing right in opposite to the Heroes Gang Orca, Edgeshot, Ochako - their Ochako - and Mirio, were Shigaraki, Twice - along with several clones - and also a strange woman in Nun clothes. After a moment they recognized her as the same woman they had seen in the recordings back in the other reality.

They could also hear the loud noise of more fighting coming from outsite the room.

Obviously another attack from the League of Villains had happened in their absence.

Or rather the attack was still going on.

"You are back!... But what...?" Their own world´s Ochako called out as she saw the group that. But her expression turned from one moment to the other from sheer happiness to confusion and shock as she saw the exact doubles of Izuku, Toga, Momo, Minetta and herself standing next to them.

What in the world was going on? If she looked closer, she noticed that their doubles were looking somewhat older than the ones she knew.

Had the Gateway somehow brought them to the future? Or... maybe?

Pictures of shows and movies about parallel worlds where other versions of yourself existed went through her mind. Could something like this really be possible?

The Gateway was supposed to be a door between the dimensions, right?

xxxx

The two Ochakos locked eyes for a moment. Both viewing and trying to get a feeling for the other.

Ochako saw how a grin appeared on the face of her double. She was getting a creepy feeling when looking at her doppelganger.

That Smile, she thought - she had seen a very similar one before. It was nearly like with Himiko Toga, especilly like their first meeting. She remembered her talking about them being `two girls in love´, while assaulting her and forcefully drawing some of her blood for later use. Still, it was difficult for her to accept it, since this time it was her own face that she saw this smile on.

Could her double truly be just as bad as Toga? Or maybe even worse? (She didn´t know how right she was.)

The other Ochako on the other hand, was getting her own impression of her as well. She had seen the look her other self had send to them when she saw them appearing from the Gateway. Or actually the look she had send to Izuku.

She could tell right away that despite all the differences between them, she had a good feeling that this world´s Ochako was most likely just as much in love wih Izuku like she was with Dekiru.

It was her friend Himoko who had shown her how to read things like that, back when they had still actually been friends.

Of course she knew that the other Ochako was probably still like her own old self. The one who still believed in the Heroes and the things they preached, the one who thought you could make he world better without killing - who had believed in a `better world´ in the first place. The `her´ who had still been innocent. She remembered how naive she had once been.

Still, it seemed some things were just the same, no matter the world.

Not that it made much of a difference. Dekiru and the Heroes were enemies now and that mean she and her other self were enemies.

The only question was, who would attack who first?

xxxx

Yes, they were back, Izuku thought.

But that didn´t meant it was over.

In some distance they could also see Bob Jones, flanked by the two Pro Heroes Kamui Woods and Vlad King. The bastard obviously let himself be `guarded´ by the same people he was trying to destroy.

But that was not even the worst thing right now. The Gateway was opened.

"You need to shut he Gateway - now!" Bakugou shouted.

"He is right," Endeavor called out as well.

"No - the experiment is too important," Jones exclaimed. "Please - it is about the future of the entire world."

Yes, the future of the world. But not like any of them thought.

"Don´t listen to him. He is lying," Izuku shouted at them. "He lied to everyone about what he is really planning."

Izuku thought about how he had respected, even a bit looked up to the man for being quirkless and still a successful and respected person. But that all had only been a fassade.

"Izuku is telling the truth Tomura," Toga called out to her leader. "This guy is trying to release a army of monsters on our world. Nothing about `future of humanity´. More like the end of it."

"We have seen it ourselves when we were on the other side," Dabi said. "We just come from a place where it had already happened."

Under normal circumstances they knew their claims would have sounded absurd. But they all just came out of a gate into another dimension.

The eyes of everyone around also felt on the two versions of Izuku, Toga and Momo who were there and on the second Ochako.

Given all that their story actually didn´t sound so illogical at all.

"I see," Shigaraki replied. "So what these two freaks have told us is actually true."

He gestured to the woman calling herself `Sister Kazuragi´ and the man standing next to her. "After we had hunted down and killed the rest of their little group, well - I could not really believe their story even after we had beaten it out of them. But now..."

So the Church of Chaos was gone. Not such a great loss in the long run, by what he had heard, Dekiru thought.

By what he had been told the so called `Church of Chaos´ was ultimately not much more than a group of common thugs with a fetish for religious symbolics. But with nearly all his own elites gone, he could not be picky.

Dekiru took a step forward. He looked at the two surviving members of that group.

"I am Dekiru - member of the Dark Order and Governor of the Area of Japan. You are Agent `Sister Katsuragi´ - leader of the so called Church of Chaos, correct?"

"Yes," she replied.

"My identification-code is - AFO-GF13084-AM. I am taking command of your group," he stated. "Or what is left of it," Dekiru remarked.

Tomura Shigeraki had followed their little exchange so far without saying anything. He did not really understood all what was said. But combined with what he had heard from this Katsuragi woman and her helper earlier, he understood enough.

He understood that this was either a potential ally... or a potential rival organization. Like the Quirk Liberation Army had been before.

He was not sure if the organization behind them was truly as powerful as they had claimed. But it could not hurt to be careful.

"I am sorry. But I fear I can not let this happen," Shigeraki commented.

He activated his Quirk... and directed it at `Sister Katsuragi´ and the other survivor of her group. The man tried to use his barrier-quirk to defend himself. But it was useless against Shigeraki´s decay power, now that it had evolved and he did not longer needed to touch something to affect it. Everything in reach of his powers would just die.

Just like Sister Katsuragi and he man beside her did in this moment. In incredible speed their figures were just shriveling, their skin shrinking and drying out and their entire bodies falling apart and practically turning to dust in less than a second.

The two eccentric Villains barely had time to scream, before the few decayed remains were falling to the floor.

None of the Heroes or Villains present however even flinched. They all had seen many people die before, by Shigeraki´s hands or others, often in similar gorish ways.

"Now - who is the heretic now?" Shigeraki said with a small smile on his decayed lips.

Dekiru had been standing in he reach of Shigeraki´s Quirk too for a short moment. But he had been brushing off the effect, or better said his own powers had been resisting and reversing the effect, before stepping out of range.

Dekiru gave just a short look to the decayed remains, before shrugging with his shoulders.

"That was unnecessary," he commented towards Shigeraki. "I was just about to give you an offer for an alliance and this two would have been somewhat useful."

"Really?" Shigeraki said. "Well - I am not really against the idea. I just want to make clear who would be the dominant part of this alliance."

"You want to be the boss, you mean," Dekiru replied drily. "Okay." He sighed. "It only makes sense," he admitted. "I have only a few people left after all." At least for now, he added in his mind. After some time the situation might be completely different.

"How is All for One in this reality?" Dekiru asked, changing the topic. "I hope he is alright."

"He is - more or less," Shigeraki replied. "Actually he is currently locked up in Tartarus. We are preparing to free him soon."

"I would be glad to assist," Dekiru replied.

Then Shigeraki turned around to Jones and looked at him threatingly.

"I guess it is time to deal with you now."

The two Heroes who were standing at his side before had also gone to greater distance to Bob Jones and were looking at him a bit warily.

"Deal with me?" Jones said loudly. "No Shigaraki - it is already too late for you... for all of you."

Jones jumped down the last few steps of the short stairs he was standing on and run forward, towards the opened dimensional gate.

Ironically, the fact that the two Pro-Heroes had stepped away from him out of instincual caution was the reason they failed to hold him back now.

For a middle-aged quirkless man though, he had a remarkable speed on his feet.

Before any of them could do anything, something else happened. The Gateway suddenly started to glow in a green shimmering sinister looking light.

They all noticed this, but nobody was quite sure what to make of it.

And then, in he next moment a ray of this light shot out from the device, like some kind of beam, and endulfed Jones body.

For a split-second a few of them believed that maybe some kind of overload discharge from the Gateway had hit him.

But the next moment they realized they had been wrong. It was much worse. And whatever kind of energy had hit him right now was not been natural at all.

Instead of disappearing after a moment, like normal lightning would have, some kind of stable energy-flow seemed to have come from the Gateway and connected with Jones body... that nearly instantly started to change.

His skin was turning into a deathly grey color, his eyes begann to glow in a bright yellow, while long grey tentacles were growing out of his back and shoulders. His entire body was growing taller and broader. His hands were growing larger into equally monstrous claws with overlong cralled fingers.

His mouth widened and split into a large slit-like maw with large razor-sharp fangs growing out it over his natural human teeth. Other smaller maws with similar fangs were opening at the ends of the now four tentacles that had grown out of his body.

He was now over two meters tall, his skin looking grey, dried out and dead, his back bend forward, his fanged tentacles leashing out a the people closest to him.

The same Heroes who had been guarding his savety a few moments earlier were now about to defend themselves from him.

They all had seen many people with strange and sometimes bizarre Quirks before. Some mutation Quirks left their owners looking more like animal hybrids than human - the Hero Gang Orca who was there was himself a good example.

But this abomination was something completely else. Something in all their senses told them that this was not a Quirk at all. This was something unnatural, something that should not exist... at least not in this world.

After a second the Heroes regained their composure. They all had faced monsters before. Even if it had been monsters from their own world, in opposite to the thing Jones had become.

The group of Endeavor, Aizawa, Izuku, Bakugou and Shoto turned around and faced the monstrosity.

A bit surprisingly Shigeraki and Dekiru joined them as well.

Kamui Woods and Vlad King, who had been `guarding´ Jones earlier, run towards them and positioned themselves at their side.

An invisible telekinetic attack suddenly hit the group of Heroes and the two Villains with enough force to threw them off their feet and push them a couple meters through the air. Aizawa and Shoto were being slammed against the side-wall of the building, while Izuku, Bakugou, Endeavor, Shigeraki and Dekiru and the two other Pro-Heroes just landed hard on the ground.

They all had been caught completely off-guard by the sudden attack.

"Damn it," Endeavor cursed.

Jones was quirkless. That meant...

"It is not just his appearance that had changed," Aizawa stated.

"That much is clear," Endeavor replied. "He has gained some kind of powers, extremely strong ones."

"Youu - ... die now," the monstrosity growled at them in a completely distorted voice.

"That is my line," Bakugou said sarcastically as he was pushing himself back on his feet.

He send a barrage of explosions at the monster, joined by Dekiru who used the copy of Bakugou´s Quirk and one moment later by two pillars of flames from Endeavor and Shoto.

The creature growled loudly under their combined assault. But aside from a few scorch-marks, it left barely any visible damage.

Shigeraki now used his Quirk again as well and directed it at the Jones-creature.

They saw it´s mutated flesh decaying under his power.

But despite that the monster was still moving as if nothing had happened.

"What in the world is that, some kind of undead?" Endeavor exclaimed.

"It seems so," Izuku said. "Whatever happened to him, this is obviously not a normal Quirk."

Despite technically being dead now, the abomination was still fighting, even if it seemd to be moving slower now and send another telekinetic attack at them. But this time they were prepared and kept themselves standing.

"Well - I tried, but it seems I have done my dues here. Too bad that it didn´t quite work," Shigeraki said sarcastically.

"But I think it is our time to leave now." He gave a look to Dekiru right next to him and then Toga and Dabi who were standing in some distance. "We will leave the rest to you Heroes. I am confident that they can win here now.

And if not we will simply alarm our whole army and send them after this monster."

"I guess that is a good idea," Dekiru said with a smile.

The other Villains knew what he meant. This would cover their escape. Shigeraki had just succeeded to weaken the monster and like he said, they would leave the rest to the Heroes. And if some of them died fighting the thing that Jones had turned into, only better for them.

They would meanwhile just continue with their own plans and come back later.

"No - you won´t," someone called out.

And in the next moment Dekiru was suddenly being tackled by... Izuku?

But the real Izuku was standing right next to them, fighting the Jones-creature.

The person who had just charged at Dekiru and was dragging him towards the Gateway however was...

"Himiko!" Dekiru called out.

xxx

A few seconds earlier

Toga, her double Himiko, Dabi and the two Ochakos were now standing close to each other and watching what was happening. Normally they would be fighting each other, but right now their groups had a common enemy.

"My god," Ochako whispered.

But now they saw that Shigeraki and Dekiru were about to leave while the Heroes were still fighting the creature.

Himiko gave a short look to the others.

"Ochako," she said. "It was nice to see you again." Ironically she said this to both Ochako´s.

"Especially you," she addressed this world´s Ochako, "since you are still like you used to be," she said.

She turned to Toga.

"And for you -... `me´ - please try to kill less people in the future," she told her other self.

"What?" Toga said, surprised at the sudden request.

Himiko run off, towards the Gateway and the group fighting the monster... and the two Villains who had just turned their backs to them and were about to leave.

"Hey - where are you going?" Ochako´s double called out and run right after her.

Half on her way Himiko transformed herself into the form of Izuku, she had still some of the effects of his blood left inside her... and charged right at Dekiru.

xxxxxxx

Now

The others just watched how Himiko had tackled the surprised Dekiru and was throwing both of them right in the direction of the still opened Gateway.

"No - you won´t," Momo´s evil double called out and aimed with one of the handguns she had created right at Himiko.

But before she could pull the trigger, she was tackled herself.

"You...?" she shouted.

It was Mineta.

"I won´t let you," he told her.

He had thrown himself at her from behind, wrapping his arms around her right arm, throwing off her aim and keeping her from shooting. (Being how he was he of course also used the chance to lay one of his hands on her breasts and get a good feeling of them. Something that had also the advantage to distract her even more.)

"You pathetic perverted cowardly little bastard," she called out angrily. "I will kill you if you don´t stop this right now."

"No," he said. "The place - the place we came from is hell. Don´t you see that? And I was never able to do something. Now I finally am. I will not let Dekiru wlk away from here," he declared.

"Hey - other Momo," he called to her double, who was standing in some distance away, "stop her right now. Shoot her."

The `normal´ Momo had a gun in the hand as well. She took aim.

"I could hit you as well," she shouted.

"Don´t worry about it," he answered, "just shoot."

But just in that moment the `other´ Momo had created a knife and rammed it with her still free hand right into Mineta´s side.

Normal Momo fired. And the shot just hit through her evil double´s chest. Both of them fell down.

Momo run forward to the dieing counterparts of both herself and Mineta, while the fight before them was still going on.

Mineta´s double smiled at her in his last moments. Her own doppelganger was already dead.

"Good job Momo," he said while he was dieing. "Funny - it is nearly as if I were... a Hero."

xxx

Himiko - still as Izuku´s double - had, with her momentum and borrowed strength, managed to throw herself and Dekiru right in front of the Gateway.

"Don´t do this Himiko," he told her. "We don´t even know if the Gateway will lead us back home if we go back through it. We could land god knows where or just disappear in the emptiness."

"Even if that is true," she replied with gritted teeth, "I will not let you get loose on this world."

She tried to push him back even further.

"So be it," Dekiru answered.

"Let go of him," Ochako´s counterpart shouted and threw herself now at Himiko, after she had followed her here and tried to use her Quirk to negate her weight to make it easier for her master to push her away.

But the next moment a hand grabbed her and pulled the evil version of Ochako off Himiko and just tossed her aside.

It was Izuku - the real one. As he saw what Himiko was doing, he had left the other fight for a moment to assist her. Right now it were just Bakugo, Shoto and Endeavor who were keeping the monster busy and sending fire and explosions at it.

"You..." Dekiru exclaimed as he noticed him, but it was already too late.

Izuku landed a punch right into his face, with a noticable part of One For All´s power behind it, that send Dekiru the last remaining distance over the edge and falling into the opened portal of the Gateway.

"No," Dark Ochako called out. She grabbed Dekiru´s arm in an desperate attempt to hold him back. But with the force of Izuku´s punch, all what she achieved was that she was pulled along with him though the Gateway.

They both were gone.

Only Himiko was left. Izuku was holding her with his other hand to keep her from falling into the Gateway as well.

"I-Izuku," Himiko said to him, "thank you. You know that Dekiru was right. There is no guaranty that the Gateway has brought them back to our world. You might have just killed them."

"I know," Izuku responded grimly. "But I did what I had to do."

The Gateway - a thought came to him. He remembered the strange flash of lightning that hit Jones right before he transformed.

"Hey," he called to the others, "I think the Gateway is what gives the monster it´s power. I will destroy it now."

"Stop talking, just do it Deku," Bakugou shouted back, who was just evading a strike of one of the tentacles of the creature while throwing another explosion.

Without another word Izuku slammed a Texas-Smash against the Gateway, that easily broke the metallic construction and ripped the entire device out of it´s anchoring and destroy it completely. The air pressure alone was enough to rip a hole through the was behind it.

The dimensional portal the Gateway had formed instantly disappeared.

A the same moment the monster stopped moving and it´s undead flesh started to fall apart.

It was literally turning to dust.

Just for good measure Bakugou blew up it´s head with a small explosion, just before it was falling apart anyway.

"Goodbye bastard," he commented.

"It is over," Aizawa said.

"Yes," Endeavor stated.

"Shigeraki and the League?"

As they turned around, the Villains were not longer there. Just as Shigeraki had suggested, they had used the situation as a distraction to leave.

"They are gone," Aizawa said drily.

xxxxxxx

Alternate Reality - some time later

Back in the other timeline, things came to be like many people had already predicted would happen. It was some time after the visitors from the `normal´ world had left.

The Nameless Ones were breaking the boundaries that were holding them back. Their influence now washed nearly instantly over the entire planet. The same thing that happened on America and parts of Western Europe now repeated on the rest of the world.

The beings that called themselves the Dark Order had by now finally decided to give up on this reality. After all this world had never lived up to their expectations. Why should they kept defending it?

Entire landscapes and cities were devastated within minutes by just a fraction of their true power that the Nameless Ones manifested on the surface of the planet.

Earthquakes, tsunamies, volcanic eruptions all over the globe and similar disasters were the first result. Japan and parts of East Asia and Europe completely sunk into the sea.

Ash filled the atmosphere.

Most of the planet´s population were killed during the calamities.

The few ones who were not, were transformed into zombie-like mutations like in America - both their bodies and minds corrupted and consumed by the godlike abominations from outside their dimension.

It was quite literally the end of the world.

After some more time the planet itself was breaking apart... and all what was left was a black hole in space.

Here the future of humanity had ended.

While in the other timeline however life just continued.

xxxxxxx

Normal Reality - the evening of the same day

They all had taken a few days off from school - or in Endeavor´s case from work and would only return in case of emergencies. The events of the last days had exhausted them mentally and stressed them all to their limit.

The group of Heroes who had visited the other reality Izuku, Bakugou, Tsuju, Momo, Shoto, his father Endeavor and Aizawa, were sitting in a small cafe, together with Ochako and with Allmight, who had just arrived in Tokyo on a airplane.

Endeavor had just ended the last part. None of them said anything for a few moments.

Himiko was also sitting with them. The Hero Society had provided her with a new identity and a place to live, given her heroic deeds. And of course in exchange for every detail about the reality she came from and the threats she had witnessed there.

While Endeavor and Izuku were the ones telling the most of the story, she was filling out and explained some details.

"This story is nearly unbelievabe," Allmight said.

"And terrifying," Ochako added. "Is there truly a chance that these creatures could appear here too some day?"

"It seems so," Endeavor stated drily.

"Both this so called Nameless Ones and the beings who were `protecting´ that world from them," Bakugou added. "Don´t ask me what is worse."

"But the Gateway has been destroyed," Ochako said.

"Yes - but that doesn´t mean that they could not reach us in another way somehow," Izuku replied. "And remember that this beings called the Dark Order claimed to have created the Quirks. That means they must have been here before. They at least didn´t need the Gateway to reach us."

"Imagine - a world-wide artificial created evolution," Aizawa repeated, "... and as some kind of field-experiment."

"That means everything what happened in the last centuries, the Heroes, the Villains, our entire world like we know it..." Allmight said quietly.

He was thinking about the entire history of the Heroe Society, of his own Quirk One for All - handed to him by seven others before and the entire history between them and All for One. All of that...

"... just a field experiment. It just sounds... unimaginable," Allmight stated. "And that means much coming from me of all people."

"In our world we had trouble to believe this too at the beginning," Himiko mentioned. "But we had already seen many other things that would seem unbelievable. And the Dark Order had no need to make up something like this."

"Does that not mean these beings can return anytime and conquer our reality too - ribbit?" Tsuyu questioned bluntly.

"Don´t forget one thing, if they are truly responsible for the Quirks, it had been centuries ago," Aizawa said. "And by what we know they had just left us alone since then."

"Yes - damn it, for all we know they just messed with all our genes a few centuries ago and then just decided that they don´t care anymore," Bakugou commented. "For all we know that bastard Jones opening his Gateway and bringing this monsters in our world was the only reason they paid attention again."

"That would clearly be the best case, but we can not count on that," Endeavor stated. "I just got a message that the government had decided to make this entire incident top-secret. Mister Robert Jones," he said the name with disdain, "had lost his life during an accident with his newest company project - unrelated to any strange events or any Villain attacks.

No great surprise here," he commented. "You," he pointed at Himiko, "are just a regular citizen with an Quirk very similar to the infamous Villain Himiko Toga."

"Riiight," Toga´s double replied with a moderate dose of sarcasm.

"But they are also not taking this lightly," Endeavor continued. "Aside from even more improvement of the training of new Heroes, the government also plans to intensify development of new technologies, especially new weapon- and defense technologies. Just in case."

"I guess that is all that really can be done," Ochako said a bit nervously.

"And even if they do come some day," Izuku stated, "it might be in another hundred, or two-hundred years, or in five-hundred."

But One for All might still exist then, he thought. One reason more to continue to groom the power and hand it over to another successor when the time came.

"It seems the idea of an invasion from another dimension really gets people to move their ass - ribbit, right?" Tsuyu commented.

"Not the most polite way to say it, but you are exactly right."

"I spend too much time with Bakugou," she remarked.

All of them expected Bakugou to snap at her for the comment.

But he just smiled.

"Don´t worry about it," he said. "I know how I am. I guess I really needed a few lessons to get my head back on the ground. I promise I will try to be easier to get along with in the future. But I can not guaranty it."

They all grinned.

"Do yo already have an idea what you want to do from now on?" Ochako asked Himiko.

"I am not sure yet. They have offered me to become a Hero as well. But I - I don´t think this is a good idea, at least not right now," she answered. "Maybe later. But for now I just want to get away from battles and fighting... and killing. I guess it is quite ironical hearing that from me."

"We have seen your timeline Himiko - ribbit," Tsuju said, "we understand."

"Do you want us to help you?" Izuku asked.

There was something painful in the look Himiko send to him.

"You three have been my best friends in my timeline... and more than that," she stated. "You know that I was in love with both of you?" she said to Izuku and Uraraka. "And I don´t exactly dislike you either Tsu," she said with an a bit lecherous smile.

This caused all three of them to blush deeply.

"Maybe we should leave and let you continue this conversation under yourself," Allmight said politely.

"Don´t worry I am finished in a short time," Himiko told him. "And by what I saw my other self feels the same way," she said.

"Yes - she said something like that," Ochako replied.

"But you have seen what happened with your other selves from my world," Himiko added. "And every time I look at you, I can not help to see them."

"I understand," Izuku replied.

"It is not as if I don´t want to see you three again," she said. "But please give me some time to come to terms with everything. Besides, my other self and you, you are... enemies, right?"

"She is a Villain," Izuku answered.

"And she is crazy and she is killing people," Ochako added. "At least unless she changes, it will stay that way."

"I know," Himiko replied. "Well - I guess you should never give up hope, right?"

End

Here is finally the last chapter of this story.

I left it open if Dekiru and Ochako´s counterpart have survived the fall though the Gateway and eventually landed somewhere else or not.

Also - there no sequel or similar story planned, at least for the visible future.