Two days later, Izuku and Ejiro had their first day off in months. As was their tradition, they ended that relaxing day with a nice night at the best bar in the Underground.

It was a tiny, hole-in-the-wall kind of place on the fourth level; high enough that it was welcoming and cozy, and low enough to slip under the radars of the tourists who infested the uppermost levels of the Underground like a plague. Plus, Izuku and Ejiro had saved the proprietor from a tunnel collapse a few years back, and she always made it clear their drinks were on the house.

They never took her up on that offer, of course; if they had, they would have drunk her out of business long ago, and then where would they go?

With a grin, Ejiro slammed a nearly-empty beer bottle down on the table of their booth in a corner of the small, crowded tavern. Leaning back and giving a mighty sigh, he declared, "Man, do I love days off."

Across from him, Izuku took a sip of his own drink, grinning as he did so. Ejiro's natural boisterousness was something that often overwhelmed those meeting him for the first time, but Izuku had had a lifetime of practice dealing with his best friend. He joked, "Uh oh, sounds like somebody's trying to slack off!"

Ejiro rolled his eyes. "You know," he retorted, "I'd take that more seriously if it wasn't coming from the biggest workaholic I knew."

Izuku shrugged, unable to counter something they both knew to be true. He rarely took time off, and never let himself deviate from workout schedules or skip agency meetings. He'd reached the top of the hero world not just through sheer talent and strength, but unimaginable work ethic, too. He was proud of that, even if it hadn't left much time for…well, anything else, really.

"You think I'd be the Number One if I didn't work so hard?" Izuku pointed out. He knew Ejiro was never resentful of the difference between their ranks; it just wasn't in his nature to be jealous like that. Hell, Izuku sometimes wondered whether Ejiro got more of a kick out of being friends with the Number One Hero than Izuku got from being the Number One Hero.

Ejiro gave an exaggerated shrug, stroking his chin as he did. He replied, "Yeah, you'd definitely do it even if you only caught half the villains you do now."

"Are you kidding me? Even now, Bombshell and Mercury are on my tail. Even Gale could catch up to me in solved cases if I'm not careful!" Izuku argued.

"You know you don't have to use Bakubro and Todoroki's hero names, right? They're our old classmates, they don't care," Ejiro said with a grin. Izuku stared at him with a scandalized look on his face.

"It's a mark of respect!" he told the redheaded man. Ejiro just shook his head.

"You and I both know it's just because you fanboy over them constantly," he reminded Izuku.

Once again, Izuku found himself unable to disagree, so instead, he retorted, "I fanboy over all our old classmates."

"You sure do," Ejiro agreed. "Even though none of them could ever hope to beat you."

Izuku opened his mouth to disagree, but Ejiro just sighed loudly, recognizing the look on his best friend's face. Raising a hand to forestall the usual self-deprecating arguments, Ejiro said forcefully, "Izuku. Your case numbers are only half of your ranking, remember? And there ain't a single person in this country who could beat you for popularity."

"I don't know about that…" Izuku muttered, trying to fight a blush off his cheeks.

Ejiro, of course, heard it perfectly, and bared his sharp teeth in an amused grin as he said in a singsong voice, "Oh, I'm sorry, Mister "Heir To All Might." Or would you prefer "All Might Reborn?" "The Titan Of Japan," maybe? Oh, don't forget the "Rising Pillar!"

By the time Ejiro was finished reeling off just a few of the adoring epithets given to him by the media, Izuku had slammed his head into the scuffed wood of the table in front of him with a loud, exhausted groan.

"Who the fuck thought of that last one?" he wondered aloud. "It just sounds like a dick joke."

Ejiro's grin was utterly merciless as only a best friend's could be as he replied, "It is a dick joke, buddy. One I will be making for the rest of our lives."

Izuku raised his head off the table. His green eyes burned with sudden, intense fury strong enough to fix the bravest man in the world to the ground.

"I'll kill you one of these days," he informed his oldest friend.

Ejiro remained utterly unafraid. He responded smoothly, "You've been saying that since middle school. It hasn't happened yet."

Izuku just rolled his eyes. He and Ejiro had been best friends since kindergarten, when a plain black-haired boy with a weak, pointless quirk had stood between a boy with no quirk at all and his would-be bullies. They'd been inseparable ever since, from UA to heroics. But even after two decades of friendship, Ejiro still found new and exciting ways to punch massive holes in any ego Izuku could have possibly developed from becoming the Number One Hero.

Totally unbothered by the friendly, toothless exasperation in Izuku's gaze, Ejiro continued, "Anyway, back to my point. You, my friend, really need to take breaks more often."

Izuku demanded, "What would I even do with more free time? I'd just be stressed out about not being able to help the heroes keeping people safe."

Ejiro knew that just as well as Izuku did, but his grin only sharpened, into an expression that had Izuku tensing in nervous recognition.

"Then what you need," Ejiro told him with a wink, "is a stress reliever."

The wink and the exaggerated grin Ejiro did as he spoke gave Izuku all the layers of meaning he needed to understand just what his friend was implying. With a sigh and another eye-roll, Izuku firmly replied, "No. We've been over this, man."

"Sure we have," Ejiro agreed, shrugging, "but I'm just saying, getting you laid would be a great way to blow off some stress-"

Izuku repeated, "No, Ejiro. That's not happening."

"What, you still think you're plain?" Ejiro cracked. "You're more of a looker than I am, bud, and you know how easy it is for me to-"

Izuku reached across the table and conked Ejiro on the head with a heavy fist. "If this is about the beard again, I will end you," he told the redhead. "Nobody wants to hear about the beard anymore."

Ejiro rubbed ruefully at the feature in question, a fine, short-cropped beard that ran along his jaw, coming to a small goatee-like spike under his chin that became a powerful weapon when he used his quirk. Despite this utility, the reason he gave for growing the beard was that it made him look dashing and worldly…and to the utter gall of Izuku and everyone else who had ever known him, it actually did. For whatever reason, it drove women wild, especially in combination with the Herculean physique he'd grown into. As a result, his media reputation had trended towards that of a playboy…even if it wasn't accurate. Ejiro, like Izuku, wasn't the type of man for any sort of casual relationship. Despite all his jokes to the contrary, he was largely as celibate as Izuku, by choice, and for the same reasons. After all, they were top heroes, with little time for one night stands, and too much danger and inconvenience for anything serious. Despite all that, Ejiro had made a sport out of poking fun at Izuku over his much-hyped bachelorhood.

"As magnificent as my beard is, I'll spare you just this once," the redhead agreed. "But I'm serious. You should put yourself out there more, man. It'd be good for you."

Izuku sighed, "You know exactly why I don't do that."

Ejiro shrugged. "Fair enough, then. But for the record, on the day you do get snapped up by some lucky girl, I'll be giving you grief over it for the rest of your life."

Izuku opened his mouth to respond with a promise to do the exact same thing to Ejiro, but before he could, the front of the bar exploded.

Both heroes tensed instantly, leaping from their booth as glass shattered and stone splintered. The bar had been packed with patrons, and those lucky enough to avoid getting struck by shrapnel scrambled backwards, deeper into the bar and away from the ruined entrance, which was now occupied by a monster.

He was tall, nearly seven feet, and densely muscular. Wearing a white muscle shirt and dark pants, the villain that had attacked the bar seemed like your run-of-the-mill thug at first. But then, Izuku's eyes tracked upwards to the villain's face, and his eyes hardened.

The villain had a mutant quirk, one just as disfiguring and disturbing as all the rest of them. His burly arms ended not in hands, but in enormous pincers, bulky and hooked in a way that suggested agony for anything caught in them. His eyes, all eight of them, two large ones in front and three smaller ones on either side of his head, were jet-black and beady, and his head and neck were yellow chitin, angular and armored. His mouth was a horrifying mix of arachnid and human; red lips containing chittering mouthparts and hairlike, inhuman organs. Finally, an enormous scorpion tail was visible over one shoulder, curved upwards into striking position, segmented and made of that same chitin, with an enormous bulbed stinger on the tip, complete with a spiked point on the end nearly half a foot long.

In a voice that was barely human, mixing an alien buzzing with a deep, jaw-grinding laugh, the villain announced, "Sorry to interrupt, but I'm afraid happy hour is canceled!"

Izuku and Ejiro exchanged a single look, one that communicated intent and plans in perfect sync from long familiarity. As intimidating and monstrous as the villain looked, he was nowhere near the worst monster they'd beaten. And off duty or not, they were still heroes, and could never back down from a threat like this.

But this wasn't an open battlefield; it was a cramped bar with a low-hanging stone ceiling, full of damaged furniture and cowering and injured civilians.

Softly enough that only Ejiro could hear, Izuku muttered, "I'll deal with him. You get the civilians out of here. There should be a back entrance."

Ejiro nodded, knowing better than to argue. Izuku was simply stronger, and he'd drunk less to boot; he was almost certainly less buzzed than Ejiro was, and his faculties would be much less affected. "Kick his ass, buddy," he whispered, and then he turned, gesturing to those nearby to follow him. With his spiky red hair and sharp-toothed grin, he was instantly recognizable to those sheltering behind the bar itself. They began to creep towards the door behind the bar, away from the laughing monster striding into the building.

Izuku, for his part, summoned One For All, letting subtle shards of lightning flicker and dance across his scar-covered arms. He couldn't use much power in such close, crowded conditions…but he'd be fine.

Unaware of the heroes in the bar, the villain continued, "Now then, who wants to die first? Nothing like a good bit of mayhem to get the blood flowing-"

With a yell, Izuku leaped into the open. The villain turned, barely managing to meet Izuku's descending fist with the chitinous armor on his forearm. Even so, the force of Izuku's blow managed to send the taller man stumbling back multiple feet.

Izuku gritted his teeth as the villain resisted his punch. Curtly, he replied, "There'll be no mayhem here today, villain."

The grin the mutant returned was horrifying, all bared mouthparts and chittering sounds no human could ever hope to make. In that odd, buzzing voice, he retorted, "Oh, is that so? What makes you think you can stop me-wait a second, Atlas?"

The energy in the bar changed. Those unable to flee their hiding places perked their heads up, eyes widening even further as they recognized the messy green hair and wide, confident smile. Murmurs of relief filled the air-they knew they were saved.

But unlike nearly all the villains Izuku faced, the hulking scorpion man seemed utterly unafraid. He didn't try to run away or plead for mercy. In fact, he threw his head back and laughed.

"What are the fucking chances?" the mutant villain shouted joyously as Izuku disengaged, pulling back a step and dropping into a combat stance. "I can't believe I get a crack at you today! Oh man, your death would be one hell of a statement!"

Izuku's eyes narrowed. He wondered what "statement" this criminal was trying to make. "You seem awfully confident you can take me in a head-on fight," he retorted. For emphasis, he briefly flared One For All across his body; green lightning erupted like a storm, wreathing him in power that outshone the twinkling lights of the bar, not to mention the powerful floodlights of the streets outside. For half a second, gravity itself seemed to ripple, drawing everything and everyone in towards him, like the unstoppable force of a neutron star. Izuku knew better than to use that kind of power in such close quarters, where it was liable to do more damage to civilians and property than any villain, but is was always an effective intimidation tactic to let an opponent know just what they were up against.

But still, the half-human, half-scorpion monster across from him seemed utterly unintimidated. Darkly, he chuckled, "Oh, I don't gotta."

Izuku charged, but even as he did, the villain raised his tail. It glinted in the light, glare bouncing off it as it loomed over his head.

"After all," the villain told him, "I only gotta hit you once."

Then, faster than the eye could track, he struck. His tail shot forwards, meeting Izuku in a blur of motion. His eyes flaring wide in shock, Izuku only barely managed to twist and avoid the venomous stinger; it sliced a path through the loose fabric of his shirt, on his side, just under his arm.

"Shit," Izuku thought. "He's fast!"

No sooner had the thought formed in Izuku's head before the villain leaped forwards to meet Izuku's charge, swinging one of his enormous claws like a hammer. It moved too fast, cracking Izuku across the jaw and sending him stumbling.

To Izuku, though, the blow was light, and he quickly regained his footing, returning to the attack. The next time the villain's stinger jabbed forwards towards his heart, Izuku turned to let the tail pass, then grabbed it, just behind the bulb of the venom sacs. He pulled hard, and the villain was yanked forwards, right into the raised knee Izuku brought to meet him.

Unfortunately, the villain was tough, and the cramped quarters and civilians meant Izuku wasn't able to put enough strength into the blows to make them decisive. The villain's tail jerked in Izuku's grip, and the sudden surge of strength the mutant poured into a vicious claw strike on Izuku's leg forced him to let go of the deadly stinger. Quick as lightning, the hulking man was back on his feet, and Izuku had to keep the pressure up.

Taking the initiative, he got in close, betting that the tail wouldn't be flexible enough to reach him, at least for a few seconds. He rained punches on the villain's torso like bullets, his fists moving faster than the eye could follow. The villain yelled in pain and frustration as he was battered, ribs starting to splinter as he was pushed backwards towards the door and the wide-open street beyond.

Realizing he had an opening, Izuku leaped straight up, aiming a roundhouse kick right at the villain's head. It descended like a meteor, unstoppable, unbeatable. But when the villain smiled, victory glinting in his many eyes, Izuku realized his mistake.

The villain ducked low, his head bobbing to the side, revealing the gleaming stinger poised to strike instead. It shot forwards, and Izuku had nothing to push off of to avoid it. It slammed into his shoulder, spearing the soft flesh just below the joint like a spear made of fire. That was how it felt to Izuku, anyway, as he shouted in sudden agony, forced to land without making contact. The stinger retreated, a stray drop of venom glistening on the tip, but the burning sensation stayed in Izuku's veins as he clutched the wound.

"Venom," he realized, his blood freezing even as the toxin sped through it. "This is bad."

The villain laughed cruelly, the sound evil even without the monstrous clacking and buzzing his mutated mouth added to the cacophony. "How do you like that one, hero?" he asked mockingly. "That's the strongest shit I've got. Not sure if it's strong enough to kill a big tough bastard like you, but then…you ain't gonna last long enough to find out!"

Surging forwards once more, the villain reached Izuku long before he'd managed to fight through the agony racing through his veins. Izuku desperately tried to kick out at him, but the mutant grabbed him by the ankle, his pincers clamping down like a vise. Izuku thought he heard the crack of bone as the claws clamped down, but he might have been confused by the crack of stone as the villain swung him like a bat, slamming him once, twice, three times into the rock wall of the bar, hard enough to leave a shattered crater and deep, dangerous cracks in the wall. Then, the villain turned and threw Izuku through the shattered remains of the bar's front window. Jagged glass scraped and tore at his skin and clothes as he landed in the street outside; there were few pedestrians around, and no cars, thank God, but that just meant there was nothing to stop Izuku's momentum. He rolled to a stop in the middle of the street, bleeding from half a hundred wounds, his ankle crushed, venom coursing through his veins.

The villain laughed deeply and confidently as he swaggered through the ruined doors of the bar; the sound was cut off by a sharp hitch that made the large mutant put a hand to the side of his chest, breathing shallowly and sharply.

"Damn," he grunted, "you're no weakling poser, that's for sure. You hit like a goddamn truck. Maybe this world ain't so rotten as I thought, if it worships a man like you."

Slowly, painfully, Izuku pulled himself to his feet, silencing the screams of pain from his body with unshakeable willpower. Looking around, he saw that there was nobody nearby, no risk of collateral damage.

Perfect.

Izuku opened his eyes as power surged around him; his mental tracker of One For All crept up and up, from ten percent to twenty, to thirty…even higher. But as he pushed more and more, he was stopped by a fresh wave of agony exploding in his shoulder and chest, ten times stronger than the one before. It was so strong, it ripped another yell of pain from his lips, and broke his concentration; he could barely maintain his grip on One For All through pain this intense.

As Izuku bent over, the villain walked closer, waggling one claw in admonishment. "Now, now, don't push yourself," he warned Izuku, "the harder you fight, the quicker the venom spreads, see? I don't want it to reach your heart and finish you off before I get to kill you."

Izuku realized that the villain was right. The more of One For All he used, the more strain he put on his body, forcing his heart to pump faster, forcing his blood to flow quicker. And that meant that the venom moved that much faster, too. Already, just from his momentary push towards forty percent, he could barely feel his right arm anymore, and the burning sensation of the venom was creeping across his chest and threatening to crawl up the side of his neck.

"Now then," the villain said, his inhuman expression somewhere that might have been relish or bloodlust, "let's finish this."

With that, his tail shot forwards like lightning, towards the barely-standing, bloody, bruised figure of the Number One Hero. Izuku didn't flinch as the stinger plunged towards his heart.

And right before the tail struck, black whips shot from the palm of Izuku's hand and caught the villain's tail, inches from its target. The villain shouted in surprise as lightning shot across Izuku's body, and he surged forwards to bring his fist smashing down into the villain's scorpion-like face.

"Yes," Izuku agreed through gritted teeth and bloody lips. "let's."

Using another split-second flash of forty percent of One For All to avoid letting the venom spread too much, he struck again, feeling chitin armor splinter and break under his fist. The villain was pinned, his greatest weapon out of commission, taking blow after blow. He couldn't last much longer.

Or at least, so Izuku thought, until that damn tail curved up and struck him right between the shoulder blades. Again, fiery pain erupted at the impact wound, and he knew another full dose of venom was in his bloodstream.

Underneath him, the villain chuckled, and slammed a claw into Izuku as his grip faltered. Izuku went flying, his grip on One For All fluttering and weakening. As he sailed away, though, he realized that Black Whip should have dragged the villain with him. Instead, the limp, cut ends of the strands pinning the villain's tail down were still there, severed by the apparently razor-sharp edges of one of the villain's pincers.

"You really do refuse to give up, huh?" he said, sounding genuinely impressed.

"Never," Izuku vowed, though he didn't waste his breath by speaking out loud.

The villain didn't waste time with any more taunts. He charged again, slamming into Izuku before he could regain his feet, bashing the outer part of his claw into Izuku's face; he felt his nose break under the impact.

The villain rained more blows down on Izuku, forcing the battle away from the main street and into one of the myriad alleys between the rough-hewn stone buildings. Izuku aimed kicks and punches at his enemy wherever he could, but even the ones that connected were weak and badly targeted, a symptom of the pain and fuzziness that were slowly overcoming him, courtesy of the venom in his system.

Grabbing his tattered shirt with a pincer, the villain hauled Izuku upright, slamming him against the wall. Izuku was still feebly fighting back, but it was increasingly clear that it wouldn't do anything. He'd lost.

"It fucking figures," some wry, bitter part of him thought. "All that work and effort, and the thing that kills me is some mutant that got a lucky shot."

"Goodbye, hero," the villain said, his voice filled with victory and tiny hints of what might have been respect. "I gotta say, you weren't what I expected. You weren't no joke. I'll be telling the others about you for a long damn time."

Izuku raised an eyebrow. "The…others?" he croaked weakly. "What, are you part of my fanclub or something?"

The villain's expression might have been a grin, though the mandibles made it impossible to tell. "The opposite, actually," he replied. "But enough of that. Time to die, Atlas. When you get to hell…tell 'em Scorpio sent you."

"AND he's got a stupid name," Izuku thought, adding it to the long list of reasons why dying here and now was the dumbest thing that ever happened to him.

Even as the villain opened his claw wide, trapping Izuku's neck between the two halves, ready to clamp down and end him for good, Izuku could only lament how stupid he'd been. Charging into a fight against an unknown quirk, without backup, with his faculties dulled from alcohol…it would've taken a fucking miracle to get him out of this one.

And then, right on cue, a miracle happened.

Izuku was slipping into blissful unconsciousness when it came. In the days to follow, no matter how hard he tried, he would never be able to recall what, exactly, occurred in those few moments before the villain's pincer closed on his neck.

All he saw through his blurring, fading vision was the villain's head turn, as though he'd been distracted by someone entering the alley. There were murmured words he couldn't make out, like whispers from another life. Then a dark, flapping blur moved across his field of view, and the pressure of the villain's claw vanished from around his neck. A crash, a sound like boiling water or steam, the most bloodcurdling shriek of agony Izuku had ever heard in his life…then nothing. Absolute silence.

And just before he fell into the darkness, a shadowy, hazy figure filled his vision, and Izuku's last sight was one he'd never seen before: eyes of pure, deep, shimmering gold, surrounded by oceans of inky black.

The most gorgeous sight he'd ever seen.